French President Jacques Chirac’s chances of winning this year’s prestigious Nobel peace prize, for which he boasts a nomination, are microscopic, Norwegian experts say."Chirac’s chances are infinitely small," said Stein Toennesson, head of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo PRIO, adding that Chirac’s stance against war in Iraq did not amount to making him a man of peace. "Chirac’s position during the Iraq crisis was closely linked to national interests and not specifically to any desire for peace for the sake of peace. And looking back over his career, there is no trace of a continuous commitment to peace," he said.
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"The Nobel committee cannot reward a failure," said Tove Gravdal, a journalist and France expert at daily Aftenposten, adding that the Nobel prize for Chirac would be extremely controversial in the United States, but also in Norway. "Here we remember that one of Chirac’s first decisions after being elected president was to resume nuclear testing in the Mururoa atoll. That’s enough to outweigh his actions against war in Iraq," she said.In general, students of French history were "not struck by the country’s pacificism," she added.
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