Jacques Chirac killed in airport accident, 2000

t***@go.com

2017-05-08 09:45:43 UTC

Post by David Tenner
"On July 25, 2000, as Chirac and the first lady were returning from the G7
Summit in Okinawa, Japan, they were nearly killed by Air France Flight 4590
after they landed at Charles de Gaulle International Airport. The first
couple were in an Air France Boeing 747 taxiing toward the terminal when the
jet had to stop and wait for Flight 4590 to take off.[29] The departing
plane, an Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde, ran over a strip of metal on takeoff
that punctured its left fuel tank and sliced electrical wires near the left
landing gear. The sequence of events ignited a massive fire and caused the
Concorde to veer left on its takeoff roll. As it reached takeoff speed and
lifted off the ground, it came within 30 feet of hitting Chirac's 747..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Chirac
So what happens if the Concorde hits Chirac's 747 and Chirac is killed? His
immediate constitutional successor is Senate President Christian Poncelet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Poncelet A snap election is held.
Let's assume that Juppé and Jospin are the candidates. Whoever wins, it sets
up an alternative sequence of presidential elections--2005, 2010, 2015, etc.
Any thoughts about how these will go?
(Techincally speaking, the change from seven to five year terms was not
decided on until September 2000.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/frances-new-five-year-presidential-term/
However, by July 2000, it had strong popular support, and Chirac himself in
OTL agreed to it, and I assume it still goes through.)

I reviewed some about the President of France
during the recent elections.

It seems to me that after the end of the reign
of Napoleon III, that many of the French presidents
did not even serve one full seven year term.

A large number of them seemed to resign if they
came into opposition with the legislature, because
they considered themselves to be generally
ineffective if the legislature opposed them, and
figured that being in opposition to the legislature
was something on the order of a 'vote of no confidence'
for their presidency.

In our time line there have been only two presidents
that have served two complete terms. They were Jacques
Chirac and Francois Mitterrand. Besides those two,
there have been only three presidents that have served
more than one full term of seven years. They were
Charles de Gaulle, Jules Grevy, and Albert Lebrun,
although it is hard to say if Albert Lebrun might
have claimed that he served two full terms, I
am thinking that he did.

All other presidents either served one term or less
than one term.

Furthermore, French presidents before the middle 20th
century were not directly elected but were appointed
by the legislature. Thus you had something like the
'mad President of France' in 1920.

During Chirac's presidency the term of office was
reduced from 7 years to 5 years, and then later
the constitution was modified to only allow two
consecutive terms.

I have had strange visions of 'Of Thee I Sing'
being performed at Ford's Theater, with the
French ambassador asking Trump to translate
the play to Le Pen as the 'illegitimate daughter'
song is going on, but perhaps it was not to be.

OBWI: What if Napoleon Bonaparte is assassinated
on Christmas Eve of 1800, what happens next?
Emperor Moreau? A Bourbon restoration that rules
France all the way to 1900? France remains a
republic and never has another king? What is
the history of France and the world for the next
100 years?