[1995-2002] European Integration and Political 'Cohabitation'

The year is 1995. France has a new president, the energetic and quintessentially French Jacques Chirac. He enters the Élysée Palace promising to mend the country’s “social fracture,” a term that captures the anxieties of a nation grappling with persistent unemployment, which hovered stubbornly around 12%, and its shifting identity within an ever-integrating Europe. The ink was barely dry on the Maastricht Treaty, the blueprint for a closer European Union, and the French people were still divided over its implications. The air was thick with questions: Would a shared currency, the Euro, mean a loss of French sovereignty? Could France maintain its distinct culture and generous social model in the face of globalization? Chirac, a Gaullist, projected an image of reassuring strength, a steady hand to guide the nation through these uncertain waters.

Two years into his term, in 1997, Chirac made a colossal political gamble. Confident in his popularity and seeking to secure a stronger majority in parliament to push through his economic reforms, he dissolved the National Assembly and called for a snap legislative election. It was a move designed to crush his opponents. It backfired spectacularly. The French electorate, wary of his proposed austerity measures, delivered a stunning rebuke. Instead of a stronger right-wing majority, they elected a left-wing coalition, the “Plural Left,” led by the Socialist Party’s Lionel Jospin. The president was suddenly faced with a government entirely opposed to his own political ideology.

Thus began the longest and most politically charged period of “cohabitation” in the history of France’s Fifth Republic. Imagine a forced marriage between two sworn rivals. Jacques Chirac remained President, master of foreign policy and the armed forces, a symbolic head of state. But now, as his Prime Minister, the man in charge of the day-to-day running of the country, was Lionel Jospin, a reserved, intellectual socialist. The two men were forced to govern together. Cabinet meetings became exercises in tense diplomacy. The Élysée Palace, home of the President, and the Hôtel de Matignon, the Prime Minister’s residence just across the Seine, became two competing centers of power, locked in a five-year struggle for control and influence over the destiny of France.

Jospin’s government wasted no time in enacting its own agenda, a direct counterpoint to Chirac’s platform. Its most ambitious and controversial reform was the 35-hour work week. Introduced by Labour Minister Martine Aubry, the laws aimed to reduce the official working week from 39 to 35 hours without a loss in pay. The theory was bold: by having employees work less, companies would be forced to hire more people, thereby tackling the chronic unemployment problem. For millions of French workers, it meant more leisure time, longer weekends, and a profound change in the rhythm of daily life. But for business owners, it was a bureaucratic nightmare and a threat to competitiveness. The debate raged in cafés and boardrooms across the country, a perfect symbol of the ideological chasm running right through the heart of the French government.

Then, in the summer of 1998, politics was suddenly swept aside by a tidal wave of collective joy. France hosted the FIFA World Cup, and for one magical month, the nation was united. The French team, a vibrant, multicultural squad nicknamed “Black, Blanc, Beur” (Black, White, Arab), captured the country’s imagination. Led by the quiet genius of Zinedine Zidane, the son of Algerian immigrants, the team played with a dazzling flair. On the night of July 12th, when two Zidane headers sealed a 3-0 victory over Brazil in the final, an estimated one and a half million people poured onto the Champs-Élysées in Paris. It was an explosion of national pride. The tricolor flag flew from every window, and for a brief, shining moment, the ideal of a diverse and unified France felt triumphantly real, a stark contrast to the divided government that ruled over them.

While the nation celebrated, the machinery of European integration continued to turn, relentlessly pushing towards its most tangible milestone. The end of the French Franc was approaching. For centuries, the Franc had been more than just currency; it was a part of the national identity, its coins and notes bearing the faces of French heroes and symbols of the Republic. The transition to the Euro was meticulously planned, with prices displayed in both currencies for months. Then, on January 1, 2002, the new notes and coins finally entered circulation. French citizens lined up at banks and cash machines, holding the crisp, unfamiliar bills in their hands. It was a quiet, momentous change, a physical severing of a link to the past and a concrete step into a shared European future.

As Prime Minister, Jospin managed domestic affairs, but as President, Chirac commanded the world stage. In 1999, his leadership was tested by the war in Kosovo. As Serbian forces engaged in the brutal ethnic cleansing of Albanians, Chirac strongly advocated for military intervention, pushing a reluctant President Bill Clinton towards action. French aircraft flew thousands of sorties as part of the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia. It was a classic Gaullist posture, asserting France’s role as a major military and diplomatic power, independent and unafraid to act, a projection of strength abroad even as the President’s power was constrained at home.

The strange political marriage was scheduled to end in 2002, with a presidential election that everyone assumed would be a final showdown between the two men who had shared power for five years: Chirac versus Jospin. The campaign began, feeling almost like the inevitable final round of a long boxing match. Jospin, buoyed by a growing economy and falling unemployment, was seen as a serious contender, perhaps even the favorite. The political establishment, and the nation with it, settled in for a predictable contest between the mainstream right and the mainstream left.

Then came the evening of April 21, 2002. As the results of the first round of voting began to flash across television screens, a wave of disbelief and horror washed over the country. Jacques Chirac had come in first, as expected. But in second place, beating the Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, was the aging, pugnacious leader of the far-right National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen. A man condemned multiple times for racism and antisemitism was now in the final runoff for the presidency of France. Jospin, visibly shaken, appeared on television to announce his immediate retirement from political life, taking responsibility for what he called a “thunderclap” that had struck the nation.

The shock quickly turned into a massive, nationwide movement. That very night, spontaneous protests erupted in Paris and other cities. In the days that followed, hundreds of thousands of people, especially high school and university students, took to the streets. Their signs and chants revealed their disgust and their dilemma. The slogan of the hour became “Votez pour l'escroc, pas pour le facho” – “Vote for the crook, not the fascist,” a grim reference to corruption scandals that had dogged Chirac. The old battle lines of left versus right instantly evaporated, replaced by a single, urgent cause: the defense of the Republic. In an unprecedented display of unity, socialists, communists, and greens joined their right-wing adversaries in calling for a “Republican Front” to overwhelmingly re-elect Jacques Chirac and block the path of the far-right.

The result of the final round was a political landslide unlike any other. On May 5, 2002, Jacques Chirac was re-elected President of France with over 82% of the vote. It was not an endorsement of his platform or a mandate for his policies. It was a national referendum against extremism. The long, strange period of cohabitation had ended not with a simple political transition, but with a national trauma. It was a dramatic conclusion that exposed the deep fractures Chirac had once vowed to heal, revealing a society far more divided and anxious than the triumphant celebrations of 1998 had ever suggested.