March 12, 2007	Monday	Safar 22, 1428

PARIS, March 11: President Jacques Chirac announced on Sunday that he will not stand as a candidate in next month's presidential elections, ending a career of more than 40 years at the top of French politics.

The 74 year-old leader, who has been in office since 1995, said in a televised address to the nation that he will not seek an unprecedented third term.

“At the end of the mandate you have conferred on me, the moment will have come for me to serve you in a different fashion. I will not ask for your votes for a new mandate,” he said.

Despite the controversy that has often surrounded his actions, Chirac highlighted that he was “proud” of his record.

Chirac began his political career in 1962 as an adviser to Prime Minister Georges Pompidou, and had his first cabinet post in 1967. He served twice as prime minister, 18 years as mayor of Paris and had two consecutive mandates as president.

His 2002 re-election victory was controversial because he won with the support of left-wing voters, anxious to keep out far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen who had shocked the country by qualifying for the decisive second round.

The next year Chirac led opposition to the US-led war on Iraq, earning acclaim at home and in many parts of the world. However his fortunes tumbled in 2005, when France rejected the EU's proposed constitution, riots hit the city suburbs, and he was hospitalised with a “vascular incident”.

As expected, Chirac gave no indication in his 10-minute address whether he intends to endorse the right-wing candidate for the presidency, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, a former protege who heads the ruling Union for a Popular Movement.

Sarkozy, 52, has a narrow lead in polls over socialist Segolene Royal but now faces a new challenge from the centrist candidate Francois Bayrou, head of the Union for French Democracy, whose ratings have surged in the last month.—AFP