PARIS -- When he had to appoint a general, Napoleon Bonaparte would ask if the candidate possessed the main quality for the job: luck. No politician in French contemporary history meets that condition more than President Jacques Chirac.
Chirac has escaped -- thanks to the constitutional protection accorded to him as president -- various financial probes launched against a number of close assistants. And not only did he survive his terrible mistake of calling a new general election that effectively returned the left to power in 1997, he also went on to win re-election following the terrible blow suffered on April 21, 2002, when he got just 19 percent of the votes in the first round of the presidential polls.
For sure, the situation was worse for outgoing socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who was beaten by ultrarightist Jean-Marie Le Pen in the same election and thereby lost the chance to run in the second round. He then quit politics.