The Irrepressible Bulldozer

Although he was assured of an easy victory for his own National Assembly seat, no French politician campaigned harder during the recent parliamentary elections than Jacques Chirac. Hurling himself into the fray, Chirac traveled nearly 200,000 miles, visited some 170 districts and made 150 public appearances. For Chirac, who will return to the offices in the elegant Hotel de Matignon where he served between 1974 and 1976 as Premier under then President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, all the hard work was a natural extension of the drive that has made him one of France's most formidable political figures.

Like Giscard, Chirac began...

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