Jacques Chirac, a two-term French president who was the first leader to acknowledge France's role in the Holocaust and defiantly opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, died Thursday at age 86. Mourners brought flowers and police set up barricades around his Paris residence, as French people
1 / 20France OBIT ChiracFILE - In this Nov.5, 2009 file photo, copies of former French president Jacques Chirac's memoir"Chaque pas doit etre un but" , a 500-page tome about his early life and the beginning of his political career, are displayed in a bookstore in Paris. Jacques Chirac, a two-term French president who was the first leader to acknowledge France's role in the Holocaust and defiantly opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, has died at age 86.
"Yes, the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French state," he said on July 16, 1995."France, the land of the Enlightenment and human rights ... delivered those it protects to their executioners." In his 40 years in public life, Chirac was derided by critics as opportunistic and impulsive. But as president, he embodied the fierce independence so treasured in France: He championed the United Nations and multipolarism as a counterweight to U.S. global dominance, and defended agricultural subsidies over protests by the European Union.
"By thwarting extremism, the French have just confirmed, reaffirmed with force, their attachment to a democratic tradition, liberty and engagement in Europe," Chirac enthused at his second inauguration. At home, myriad scandals dogged Chirac, including allegations of misuse of funds and kickbacks during his time as Paris mayor.
Chirac traveled to the United States as a young man, and as president he fondly remembered hitchhiking across the country. He worked as a fork-lift operator in St. Louis and a soda jerk at a Howard Johnson's restaurant while attending summer school at Harvard University.
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