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Fri, Mar

France Losses Former President

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Jacques Chirac, a former French president who served two terms as president; one as prime minister, is dead. Information of his death was brokered by the French news agency "President Jacques Chirac died this morning surrounded by his family, peacefully," his son-in-law.

Chirac took France into the single European currency amidst a series of corruption scandals while serving as Prime minister. In 2011, he was convicted of diverting public funds while serving as the mayor of Paris.

Among his major domestic political reforms was a reduction of the presidential term of office from seven to five years and the abolition of compulsory military service.He moved during the course of his career from anti-European Gaullism to championing the European project and a European Union constitution that was then rejected by the majority of French voters.

In 2005, he suffered a stroke, and in 2014, his wife Bernadette said he would no longer speak in public, noting he had memory trouble.

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