With his taste for the little phrase, Jacques Chirac gives a new dimension to the presidential media intervention of July 14. In 2001, he ironically dismissed the controversy over the financing of private trips during his term as mayor of Paris. charges that “make pschitt”, he said. Three years later, he firmly reframes Nicolas Sarkozy, Minister of Finance with less and less hidden presidential intentions, with a formula that has remained famous: “I decide, he executes.”
When he arrived at the Elysée in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy broke with this tradition which he had castigated a few years earlier. He considers the period not conducive to media interventions, due to low news and French “already on vacation”. He held to this position throughout his term, even if he slipped a few words at the end of the parade on July 14, 2011: “What I can wish for all young French people is to understand, to find the meaning of their lives.”
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