Thanks And Farewell Jacques

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday May 26, 2007

Kevin Pilley

There are many expensive gifts from world leaders in the Jacques Chirac museum - and an ashtray from Tony Blair. Kevin Pilley reports.

Tony Blair has no taste and is a cheapskate to boot. The nation of Canada is only slightly more generous than Britain, as is the United States, and Australia is just as unimaginative. The evidence is there for all to see in Limousin.

The President Jacques Chirac Museum in south-west France was opened in 2000 and has already attracted more than 65,000 visitors. It has also made a great many Britons cringe or titter at their Prime Minister's startling generosity. Or conspicuous lack of it.

In Sarran, in the department of Correze in Limousin, the museum is not far from Chirac's retirement chateau at Bity. Designed by French architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, it contains all the former president's gifts from fellow heads of state, ambassadors and the like. They range from the opulent and priceless to the bizarre and plain naff. Five hundred new tokens of goodwill and expressions of detente arrive every six months.

"In diplomatic and statesmanly circles, gifts are exchanged to highlight the wealth, culture and craftmanship of the countries and the respect one country has for another," says Marie Lavandier, the museum's director. "President Chirac likes to give Severes vases, bottles of 100-year-old cognac, Christolfe silver, the Louvre Premier Arts catalogue and, of course, Limoges hand-painted porcelain to his guests and hosts."

Perhaps the most expensive gift on show is from Saudi Arabia's Prince Abdullah. It is a gem-studded falcon on a perch. It is made of smoky quartz, gold, vermeil, rock crystal, rubies, emeralds and sapphires. More than 1400 precious stones, including 1200 diamonds, are inlaid into the extravagant objet de mantelpiece.

Colombia gave President Chirac a rare and very valuable ancient stone statue. Tony Blair, after long consultation with his wife and doubtless prolonged discussion with his diplomatic corps, gave Chirac an ashtray dignified in the museum catalogue with the description of "a narrow-based dish with two legs". This excellent example of British bric-a-brac, which resembles an inverted lampshade, has pride of place in the exhibition of world largesse.

"It always makes people laugh," Lavandier giggles as we watch two couples peering into the glass cabinet to see if it carries a brewer's logo. "It might be a paperweight as well. We are not sure."

Canada is represented in the exhibition by child artist Alice Kowalchuck's wool embroidery, presented by Quebec's Premier, Lucien Bouchard, and a lithograph of several lobsters which was given by Bernard Lord. The university of Memramcook donated engravings of polar animals.

On behalf of the people of Chicago, Richard Daley gave M. le President a bust of Abraham Lincoln. President Bill Clinton's presents at the G7 and G8 summits were a fly fishing rod and some cowboy boots (Chirac refused to be photographed in the Stetson). Australia gave Chirac a boomerang and the Australian people are further represented by a kangaroo skin.

One of the most idiosyncratic gifts in the collection is from South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, who gave a moulded resin chess set featuring miniature caricatures of leading South African figures such as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Frederik de Klerk.

The unique museum in the Monedieres hills 30 minutes south of Limoges is being extended. It already contains more than 3000 items given thoughtfully to Chirac since he was elected President of the Republic in 1995 - there are 150 on permanent exhibition and visitors can see the reserve collection in the vaults.

Gifts from one nation to another are rarely seen. Many are locked away. Or sold. The unique museum highlights relationships between individuals as well as nations. There are rooms of carpets, vases, jugs, plates, paintings, earthenware, embroidery, ceremonial stools, carved wood, figurines, Swiss cow bells, swords, Tunisian chandeliers, blown glass, jewellery, masks, hats, helmets (notably from the Parisian and New York police force and fire brigades) and other ethnic knick-knacks.

Moroccan "khabiya" jugs stand beside jewel-encrusted swords and daggers. Personal presents from King Fahd stand next to Portuguese astrolabes. Boris Yeltsin gave Chirac a gold "korchik" or drinking vessel. Madeleine Albright donated a crystal eagle.

Japan thought the French leader would like the jock-strap or belt ("mawashi") of their top sumo wrestler, Takanohana. The Senegalese president gave a headdress. Brazil touchingly gave him a naked woman. In granite.

Perhaps the strangest souvenir on show is the stuffed coelacanth fish in a case given by the President of the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean. Boutros Boutros-Ghali presented a silver-and-gold-plated globe to celebrate the UN's 50th anniversary. The museum also houses 2500 books.

Chirac was born in 1932. His father was a bank manager who became managing director of the Dassault aircraft company. Inspired by Charles de Gaulle to enter public life, he served as economics minister in the 1960s and also served in the European Parliament. He was prime minister twice and served two terms as president. He was also mayor of Paris for 18 years.

The Chirac museum of tribal art recently opened on the Quai Branly in Paris but the museum in Sarran is the only one dedicated to his achievements. Along with Renoir and Richard the Lionheart, Jacques Chirac is a favourite son in Limousin.

The capital of the region, Limoges, dates back 2000 years. It has two 12th-century bridges, a 13th-century cathedral, a medieval butchers' quarter, a marketplace designed by Gustav Eiffel and Renoir's birthplace (you can't go inside but you can be photographed ringing the bell).

But it was the quality of the blonds that impressed me. Limoges used to be called the "Red City" because of its socialist leanings, its kilns and the number of red-faced, hypertense residents. Limoges is still the centre of the French real ale industry.

Limousin once had 49 breweries making cervoise (barley) beer. Now it only has one, Brasserie Martial in Place Denis-Dussoubs. It is run by two sisters, Sophie and Julie Michard, who will guide you through degustations of their blond, brown and amber beers that are served at lager temperature.

Their bar is packed every night, with most people leaning up against the brass fermentation chambers and maturation tanks. The sisters will also guide you to the toilet and help you remember how to get back to your hotel.

Limoges claims to be more a Green City. The best way to see it is the Richard the Lionheart route which winds through fields of chesnuts and cherries west of Limoges past fortresses such as Arnac-Pompadour (built by regional overlords to repel Richard on his return from the Crusades) and self-proclaimed "plus beaux vilages" including Segur-Le-Chateau on the river Auvezere.

Richard, who was more French than English, died from an arrow wound at Chalus, in Limousin, in 1199. His bowels were buried in the Romanesque church. His heart ended up in Rouen Cathedral. Until the chateau was bought by a millionaire cobbler and closed to the public, those elderly bowels were Limousin's chief tourist attraction.

But bowels aren't as entertaining as ashtrays and you learn more in a Chirac museum than you do in an enamelware one. You learn that Tony Blair is not an emir or an oil-rich Saudi prince. Or a very close friend of France. He obviously doesn't lavish much time or money on it. He may be a Sultan of Spin but he is far from being the Sultan of Brunei.

The Jacques Chirac Museum, and one cheap ashtray in it, stands as a tangible but not so mute witness to British New Labour's frugality and thriftiness. It is monument to Tony Blair as much as President Chirac. It is ?4 ($6.55) well spent. Which is probably more than the ashtray cost.

Musee du President Jacques Chirac, phone 335 5521 7777 or see www.museepresidentjchirac.fr/