On the face of it, the same is true for Mr Chirac on the right.
Arguably, Mr Chirac, at 68, is a bit old to play the reformer convincingly.
Mr Chirac, in his own address to the assembly, said "dialogue must prevail" in the standoff.
But from Mr Chirac's point of view, Mr Balladur's age means he is no future threat.
Mr Chirac has given some ground, promising a referendum on Turkish entry in 10-15 years' time.
Cohabitation is bad enough, in Mr Schrameck's view, and Mr Chirac has made it worse.
As prime minister in the late-1980s, Mr Chirac was seen as an energetic reformer.
Yet this may be to lend more coherence to Mr Chirac's policies than they deserve.
In an opposite offering, Mr Chirac did not mention federalism or the commission at all.
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The Germans tend to see Mr Chirac, who became president in 1995, as impetuous and bulldozing.
ECONOMIST: Still the best of friends in the Franco-German motor? | The
Not surprisingly, Mr Chirac says Germany deserves leniency despite its repeated breach of the rules.
And why not a bid by Jean-Pierre Raffarin, increasingly at ease as Mr Chirac's prime minister?
But Mr Chirac's strategy may, in the long run, be even riskier than Mr Blair's.
In fact, Mr Chirac still has three chances to put his stamp on the country.
Mr Blair met Mr Juncker on Tuesday, ahead of the summit, and then later Mr Chirac.
Mr Chirac is a former farm minister who cut his political teeth in rural France.
He was a career diplomat before being chosen as Mr Chirac's chief of staff.
Still, a lot of Mr Chirac's friends say he should call a snap parliamentary election.
The consequences of letting America's deficits continue are certainly worrisome, as Mr Chirac suggests.
Nobody present dared to say or do anything that might have upset Mr Chirac.
EU, as Mr Chirac did, national politicians make it seem as though the problem lies elsewhere.
Which is why, for Mr Chirac, he would be the most risky choice of all.
Mr Chirac's presidential manifesto in 1995 was a hotch-potch of contradictions and promises, many later broken.
Akin to a bullet in the back, agreed one of Mr Chirac's worried parliamentary allies.
If the right recovers from its current disarray, it will be Mr Chirac who benefits.
If Mr Chirac, with his conservatives in disarray, is getting worried, who can blame him?
And Mr Chirac is right to chastise the government for timidity on reforming pensions.
Their recalcitrance led Mr Chirac to conclude that they were too fragile to cope with unpopular change.
Mr Chirac said no to that, arguing that the current CAP budget is already sorted until 2006.
After his presidential-election defeat by Mitterrand in 1988, Mr Chirac was reported to have fallen into depression.
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