Chirac bids adieu

22 million people tuned in to see Jacques
Chirac say goodbye to politics last night.
Photograph: Jacques Brinon/APThe French measure out their lives in presidents. The author Jean-Paul Dubois structured a whole novel, Une Vie Francaise, around presidential eras: his hero rioted under De Gaulle, prospered under Mitterrand and saw his life fall apart under Chirac. So the moment when the French president bid farewell to the French people last night had enormous significance.

Some bloggers confessed to a frisson as they sat down to watch him confirm that he would not run again for president. More than 22m tuned in - more than watched Les Bleus win the European Championship in 2000. But at the end of his era, as throughout it, Chirac failed to rise to the challenge.