Goodbye President Chirac!

As has been widely reported in Albanian media, former France President Jacques Chirac passed away on Thursday, September 25th, to his home, under the care of family members. With this case, numerous information about his political life has also been given to the Albanian public, where he is pronounced, for good reason, that he remains the most career-long politician not only in France but probably in Europe in the second half of the last century. Sometimes the minister, several times prime minister, mayor of Paris (1977-1995), to close him up as president of the Republic with two consecutive mandates (1995-2005).

Early in the day that I had the honour of being at the table with him during the period when he had already closed political life, I heard him remember with special pleasure the time he had been minister of agriculture and him as mayor of Paris. He had his own reasons for such preference. As the Ministry of Agriculture said, it had given him the opportunity to get to know and worship the real France, the village's home where the French soul is preserved. Meanwhile, the Paris City Hall marked another experience for him. Because of the bloody rebellion of what is in history known as the “Komunion of Paris” (1871), over more than a century, Paris was governed by a special law, without a popular elected mayor. Jacques Chirac somehow founded the post of mayor of Paris and kept it steady for 18 years until he became president of France.

But beyond the great role he has played in the history of his country and all of Europe, it is our chance to mention with the deepest reverence the figure of President Jacques Chirac as a great and stable friend of Albanians. As a sign of humor, I am giving myself the right to recall in summary some facts that will not be forgotten.

Without filling a year as mayor, Jacques Chirac received a request from France Albanians to establish the name “Scanderbeg” A street or square in Paris. It's about anti-communist political immigration. In France, mainly in Paris, there lived a part of the birdy cream located there in the mid - 1950 ' s along with King Zog, as well as a part of the balling cream led by Professor Abbas Ermenj, chairman of the National Ball. Despite their divisions, Albanians had widely voted goalist Jacques Chirac. He welcomed this request without hesitation. As Ismail Kadare has rightly written, Albanian diplomacy at the time has made one of the greatest disgraces in the history of the Albanian state. The communist government of Tirana, because the initials were its sworn enemies, did everything to prevent it, even threatening to break relations. As one senior French diplomat has shown me, a witness to this event, for the sake of truth the French Foreign Ministry, which, like all diplomacy, did not like fighting another country, put much pressure on the leadership of Paris, in order to bring down such an initiative. But, her chairman, Jacques Chirac, was not broken. With his decision signed on August 30th 1978, the square near Pont-de-Flandre was given the name of our national hero.

History continues. Jacques Chirac is one of the first high European political personalities to invite and host a delegation of the Democratic Party, led by Sali Berisha, to his office. That was in early spring 1991. Three years later, in 1994, however, Jacques Chirac would be among the first high-ranking European political personalities to wait for yes in his Paris Mayor's office, President Rugova and on the way out would make a strong statement in support of Kosovo Albanians, such as no European politician had yet made. Even this expectation of President Rugova from Chirac would spark strong controversy from Serbian diplomacy. Moreover, this was at a time when France's President Francois Mitterand received President of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic with protocol honour.

Jacques Chirac would keep his promise to Ibrahim Rugova. A few months later, when it would enter the presidential campaign, which it would win for Kosovo's good fortune, it would stress in its programme that “Kosovo would be the red line Serbia shouldn't violate”. Not by chance was Paris (Ramboullet) chosen for the international conference on Kosovo in 1999. Even there, with the quality of the host, the opening of the conference gave a memorable speech warning France's stance if Serbia would not accept the peaceful solution. Things turned out to be known. When NATO was to undertake bombings on Serbia, France would be the second post-US country, with the number of planes participating in operations. Well, for nearly 25 years, France was not a member of NATO military structures. President Chirac broke a decision taken by his spiritual and political father, General De Gaulle, not to engage in NATO military operations. It was not an easy step for President Chirac to step forward. Serbs experienced it as burial of traditional Serbian-French friendship. Televisions around the world showed the symbol monument of this friendship in Belgrade, wrapped in black beses as with fur.

I find it an opportunity to show another unknown episode to the public, but that I appreciate with particular significance in President Chirac's friendly behavior towards Albanians. Berisha's re-election for president in March 1997, for the very circumstances in which it occurred and which is not the case here to mention, was not getting approval in any of the heavy-weight Chancellors in Europe or Washington. I was still ambassador to Paris. The French Foreign Ministry was part of this refusal choir. I talked to one of President Chirac's close people about the need to recognise Berisha's re-election so that someone could legitimately run the country until the new early elections, to be held in June. On that same day, on orders from President Chirac's cabinet, I was given an audience with Foreign Minister Herve de Charetta, who would have to explain the same arguments as the President's man. President Chirac himself was on an official trip to one of the Latin American countries. Within the day, in the first public appearance he had within the framework of state activity that was being held in that remote country -- that is, toward the end of the world we Albanians would say -- he found the way to say a sentence for recognising Berisha as the legitimate president of the Republic of Albania. It was a sentence with no connection to what the reporters were asking. But he did. Only a friend would. I'll be grateful for the rest of his life. It was a sentence that immediately set Germany and all other French allies in motion to go in the same direction.

In these farewell days, I find it appropriate to remember with gratitude even a personal honor that President Chirak made me. Nearly a year after finishing his second term as president of France and eventually withdrew from political life, he established the foundation of the “Chirac” Foundation. I was one of three international political personalities who invited to join this initiative from the very beginning. It was 2008. I have continued attending board meetings of this foundation until 2014. We had two meetings a year. Frankly, I went mainly because President Chirac himself was coming. It was a tremendous pleasure and a great honor to hear him speak, how he listened, how he came to the decision. When President Chirac began to stop attending these meetings for health reasons, I too resigned from this board. I've never seen him around. And I'll never see her again. Goodbye, President.