Chirac in Glasses Shock

France flashed back to the mid-1980s when Jacques Chirac issued his solemn appeal for peace and tolerance on television. For the first time since he became president, in 1995, Chirac adressed the nation wearing glasses. The event was startling enough to justify a whole front page of Libération.

Back in the mid-80s, the then Mayor of Paris and Prime Minister, shed his square horn-rimmed spectacles along with the American cigarette that used to dangle from his lips. Contact lenses gave him the softer look that Claude, his 44-year-old daughter and image adviser, told him he needed to win the young vote. He also took to strolling around in jeans and a sweater. Chirac has always kept his hair slicked back in 1940s businessman's style but le relooking, as make-over is known in French, worked.
      
With 18 months left in the Presidency and an ungrateful nation eager for a successor, Chirac, has decided to let himself look his age.

The great survivor of French politics turns 73 on November 29. He suffered what is still mysteriously described as a "minor vascular incident" in September, but  aides said that this apparent stroke had nothing to do with the glasses -- still rectangular and horn-rimmed but fashionably narrow. The President had decided to stage his révolution binoculaire, as le Canard Enchaîné called it, because he felt more comfortable reading his text that way (see Canard's front-page cartoon).

This was a big step because only two years ago, the Elysée Palace carpeted a minister who let slip that le grand Jacques, who prides himself on his image of vigour, was now equipped with a hearing aid. The gaffe by Rosalyn Bachelot, Environment Minister, was held to have contributed to her sacking a few months later. 

Chirac apparently donned his glasses against the advice of Claude, his media strategist and image-minder since he first ran for the presidency. According to le Canard, which has good informers at the Elysée, the fur is flying in the Chirac household. Mother Bernadette blames Claude for her husband's hopeless first address on the housing estate revolt. "Did you see his bungled talk on the telly?" Mme Chirac asked friends, according to le Canard. "It's Claude's fault again. She already made him mess up his big debate with the young in the referendum campaign and now she's at it again."

Chirac's session with young voters last April, stage-managed by Claude, was one of the lowest points of his doomed campaign for a 'yes' to the EU Constitution. In his first riot address 10 days ago, Chirac shuffled out onto the Elysée steps to talk to the cameras. He seemed oddly disconnected from the fire-raising on the housing estates a few miles away. The glasses in this week's address helped him to project the image of stern and solemn father-figure that Bernadette called for.