this man appeared on the political scene
back in the 1970s he was Prime Minister
in the 1970s let us not forget when he
was regarded as you know a part of a new
generation of whiz-kid young politicians
or technocrats who had emerged under the
aegis of the Gaul and Pompey do I
remember he was characterized
characterized famously in in an early
Asterix album as as the exemplar of the
young thrusting planner in in the book
he was at he was a Roman but in the
force and written in real life he was a
planner he was a great organizer entered
politics as a gore list whatever that
meant or whatever that means but
certainly under the banner of the Gaul
and Pompey - in that succession and then
had this long long kind of in out war
which was really kind of friendly war
with President meteor want president
meter all the Socialists sherek the man
of the right and you know a battle in
which they both posed as being terribly
hostile the other but in point of fact
that their policies were very very close
and they you know that and part of the
sort of great critique of this whole
period is that for 30 years when the two
men dominated French politics not much
was done because there was a kind of
cozy consensus around around the center
certainly sherek was never a radical
right-wing at all and metre or was never
a part of that very beginning a radical
left winger and and there was a sort of
collusion between the two and of course
they did actually cohabit as the phrase
went from time in in the 80s when Chirac
was Prime Minister and metre always was
was president so the other thing one has
to remember at sherek is that same
famous poll he was the man that even
towards the end of his tenure he's the
man that a man that you know most French
people said they'd quite like to have
dinner with so even even even when there
was a massive rejection of his policies
as a general sense that he'd represented
a sort of drift it's certainly in terms
of economic and policy inside France and
the decline had taken root under his
tenure he was nonetheless a man who was
much highly regarded loved even for what
he seemed to represent he was a unifier
he was somebody who had his roots in the
countryside who loved coughing beer and
eating
you know cow calves head stew or pate
and he was bit Catholic but not too much
he was certainly not too right-wing he
was bourgeois but not too much he was
able to talk to farmers the farmers
loved him he was someone who represented
France at emblem of France that people
could identify with something which I
would say since his departure and many
would say that since he's gone maybe
politics has taken a turn for the better
because there are more dynamic
politicians around but since then it
hasn't been that kind of unifying
character at the top of French politics