Jacques Chirac (born 1932) was an influential French technocrat under Presidents Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou. He served as prime minister under President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (1974-1976), was an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 1981, became prime minister again in 1986 under President François Mitterrand, and was elected President of France in 1995. He was re-elected in 2002.

Jacques Chirac was born in Paris on November 29, 1932. Young Jacques had a meteoric career. Like many upper middle class Parisians he first headed for the bureaucracy. He graduated from the prestigious Institute for Political Studies and the National School for Administration, one of the training grounds for the French elite.

In 1959 Chirac began his bureaucratic career in accounting at the Cour des Comptes. Like many bureaucrats of his day, he found his own commitment to growth and modernization coincided with the policies of the new Gaullist government. He was tapped to...