President Chirac bids farewell to France in a television address tonight, but not to his life on the international stage. Taking Bill Clinton as his model, the 74-year-old Gaullist has set up a foundation to enable him to help to shape global policy on development and climate change.

The Jacques Chirac Foundation, financed from corporate and private donations, is a new addition to the club of institutes set up by former statesmen who simply cannot bring themselves to retire.

Mr Chirac, who is succeeded tomorrow by Nicolas Sarkozy, wants to use his five decades of political experience, his passion for nonEuropean civilisations and his more recent conversion to the environment, said Michel Camdessus, 74, the new foundation’s president. “Jacques Chirac has deep convictions,” he told Le Monde. “A locomotive like Chirac will get things moving.”

As vans shuttled the Chiracs’ belongings across the Seine, staff at the Elysée Palace spent the day shredding documents. Orders were given to destroy or take home all personal documents and notes. Tapes of meetings and press conferences were also destroyed and deposited in rubbish skips that were parked around the palace.

Mr Chirac and Bernadette, his wife, are moving into a flat on the Left Bank that has been lent to them by the family of Rafik Hariri, the former Prime Minister of Lebanon and close Chirac friend who was murdered two years ago. They are not paying rent on the spacious two-storey apartment but the move will be their first into a private home since 1977 when Mr Chirac became Mayor of Paris. Those mayoral years may return to haunt Citizen Chirac after June 16 when his presidential immunity lapses.

Investigators want to tie up loose ends in cases arising from illegal funding of his Gaullist Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) party when he was its chief. More than a dozen of his subordinates have received suspended sentences.

Mr Sarkozy yesterday opened the first front in his programme of radical reform, to revamp labour laws and curb strike powers, calling in trade union and employers’ leaders to pave the way for negotiations in the autumn.

Keeping busy

Margaret Thatcher Foundation formed 1991, to advance political and economic freedom

Gorbachev Foundation (1992) promotes economic development, disarmament

William J. Clinton Foundation (2001) focuses on poverty and the climate

Nelson Mandela Foundation (1999) promotes education and fight against Aids

The Carter Centre formed by Jimmy Carter (1982) to improve life in 65 countries Sources: gorby.ru; margaretthatcher.org; nelsonmandela.org; clintonfoundation.org; cartercenter.org; Times archives

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