Bill's Comment Page

“J’accuse Jacques”

I’ve just watched an extraordinary demolition job on Jacques Chirac, President of France, shown on British ‘independent’ (see below) television station Channel 4. Writer and broadcaster William Shawcross wrote and presented this marvellous short programme (only about 15 minutes long).

None of it was particularly new to me, although it offered some fresh insight into the cosy relationship going back over many years between Chirac and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, indeed pre-dating the latter becoming President of Iraq.

Under French law the President cannot be indicted for crimes whilst in that job. Until just before last year’s Presidential election, there was a serious risk Chirac would be defeated by his Socialist rival Lionel Jospin and it is likely that had this happened there would have been serious efforts to indict Chirac for various alleged frauds (mainly defalcation of public money). However, the humiliating defeat of Jospin in the first round of voting, coupled with the strong showing of the Front National of Le Pen, gave most moderate French people a severe shock. As a result even Socialists chose, against all their instincts, to cast their votes in the second round for hate-figure Jacques Chirac. The spectre of another European democracy voting in a ‘fascist’ regime (the others are Austria and, possibly, Italy) was thus averted – the price paid was another period in the Presidential Palace for ‘super liar’ Jacques.

Whilst many French people seem to support his policy of keeping France out of the ‘coalition of the willing’ currently active in Iraq, and his policy of threatening to veto any further resolution on Iraq placed before the UN Security Council, there are French people who consider his policy at the very least short-sighted, if not outright ‘bonkers’. Chirac is a wily politician who has survived many setbacks and scandals throughout his long career – it remains to be seen how he is going to get out of the ‘flak’ which will rightly be thrown at him once the present Iraqi regime is no more.

Note: Channel 4 is an autonomous public corporation owned by the British government and funded by advertising. Its role is to provide a wide range of ‘minority’ programming and represent all points of view. It was set up in the early-1980s under Mrs Thatcher’s first Conservative administration as a way of counter-balancing the BBC (funded by a compulsory licence fee on all television owners) and the commercial channels, which like Channel 4 are funded by advertising. The Labour Party objected at the time to the competition it was expected that Channel 4 would offer to the BBC (specially BBC2), just as they had objected when commerical television was launched in the 1950s. They wanted the BBC to retain its monopoly (just as they objected to all the privatisations spearheaded under Thatcher).

If and when it is decided to end the compulsory licence fee currently funding the BBC, then I think the formula under which Channel 4 was set up is a strong contender to replace the licence fee and ensure a balanced core media. I shall certainly be keeping my recording of William Shawcross's programme in my video archives - it will provide horribly fascinating viewing for many years to come, I suspect, whenever the name of Jacques Chirac comes to mind.