REACTION
"Jacques Chirac is now entering history." While the former president died Thursday at the age of 86, his Minister of Defense from 2002 to 2007, Michele Alliot-Marie, returns to the microphone of Europe 1 on their years of collaboration.
"Alleviating the suffering of peoples"
"He was a man who had a clear vision of the history of the world and the greatness of France," greets the former minister. Michèle Alliot-Marie occupied the Hôtel de Briennes during a period marked by several conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon and during the political-military crisis in Côte d'Ivoire.
She remembers a president "extremely present", who has helped him a lot in his work. "He was both very anxious to avoid wars and all their negative consequences for people, and very attentive to what could be done to alleviate the suffering of the people."
Against the war in Iraq
We remember Jacques Chirac today as the man who dared to say "no" in the United States about the war in Iraq. Michèle Alliot-Marie mentions meetings in very small committee on the subject, in which only the two heads of state and their closest advisers took part. "He was trying to make George W. Bush understand that winning the war is nothing, the problem is to win the peace."