Chirac has 24% Approval Rating, Press Reports Great Upside Potential

With his popularity rating in the toilet, President Chirac is looking at a miserable future. His elitist policies and megalomania have finally turned off the populace to the point that his approval ratings are under 25%. It will be interesting to see if the American and French media, both owned mostly by internationalists rally to his aid. I expect the French media to do so, they have upheld the party line so far in Chirac’s defense, but I can also see mass defections. I wonder if his Iraq policies play into this?

Bloomberg shows the fall out in this article:

President Jacques Chirac’s popularity plunged to a record low following the May 29 defeat of the European Union constitution in a national referendum, a TNS-Sofres poll showed.

Chirac’s approval rating fell 8 points to 24 percent this month, according to a survey of 1,000 French people conducted from May 30-31 for Le Figaro Magazine. No margin of error was given. That’s the lowest since TNS-Sofres started surveying voters in 1979 under President Valery Giscard d’Estaing.

Chirac suffered his third electoral defeat in 14 months when voters rejected the EU treaty. The failure of Chirac to tackle a jobless rate of 10.2 percent, the highest since December 1999 contributed to voters’ rejection of the treaty.

“It’s the consequence of the referendum,” said Brice Teinturier, director of political and opinion studies at TNS- Sofres in Paris, on LCI television. “We can see the rising concern about unemployment.”

Chirac on May 31 named de Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin, 51, to replace Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin in a shake-up following the defeat, promising to make job creation his new government’s priority

The main problem for Jacques is that job creation in France, even with it’s 11% unemployment is near impossible. The only way that they could do so would be to increase the government employment. The French have so screwed up there economy and business structure that they have made it impossible for the entreprenuer. And the entreprenuer is the catalyst for employment growth. So Chirac is screwed unless he opens the treasury.

If you are interested in Chirac’s travials, Doug Ireland at LA Weekly has written an accurate and scathing indictment of the Chirac’s policies and failures.

The massive defeat of the new European Constitution by the French in a May 29 referendum means a virtual political revolution in France — a rebellion by the people against the political elites of both left and right. The French rejected the proposed EuroConstitution by a whopping 10 points, despite an overwhelming, mendacious campaign for a Yes vote by the mainstream French media (including a major pro-Yes bias in TV coverage) and tireless stumping for a Yes vote by nearly all the major political leaders of left, right and center. The No vote reflected the deep cleavage between what the froggies call “La France d’en haut et La France d’en bas” — the France of above and the France of below.

My French may be a little off, but at Scared Monkeys we are not afraid to say

moins populaire qu’un baiseur de porc.