A decade or so in power saps the authority of any political leader. Just ask Britain's Tony Blair. But the troubles afflicting France's president, Jacques Chirac, in the twilight of his 11-year-old presidency, are chronic. His government this week survived a vote of no confidence, but emerged no stronger. Most debilitating of all, its credibility is being undermined mainly by an internal war of attrition. With an absolute majority in parliament, the ruling centre-right UMP party comfortably saw off the censure motion, proposed by the Socialist Party. Ahead of the vote, Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, spoke defiantly of his plans to create a "fairer, more united and more confident" society. But his fighting talk scarcely registered. More than half the UMP'S deputies did not vote. Francois Bay-rou, leader of the centrist UDF party, which has a minister in the government, voted against it for the first time since the party was created in 1978 by then President Valery Giscard d'Estaing. "Our country," declared the Socialist Party, "is going through one of the most serious political crises of the fifth republic."
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机译：执政十年左右，削弱了任何政治领导人的权威。只是问问英国的托尼·布莱尔。但是困扰法国总统雅克·希拉克（Jacques Chirac）的麻烦在他11岁的总统任期内已经是长期的。他的政府本周在不信任投票中幸存下来，但没有出现更强大的势力。最令人失望的是，它的信誉主要受到内部消耗战的破坏。执政的中右翼UMP政党在议会中占绝对多数，欣然接受了社会党提出的谴责议案。在投票前，总理多米尼克·德维尔潘（Dominique de Villepin）对他的计划创建了一个“更公平，更团结，更自信”的社会。但是他的战斗谈话几乎没有记录。统一计划的代表中有一半以上没有投票。中共UDF政党领导人弗朗索瓦·贝鲁（Francois Bay-rou）在政府中拥有部长，这是该党由当时的总统瓦莱里·吉斯卡·德斯塔因于1978年成立以来第一次投票反对。社会主义党宣称，“我们的国家正在经历第五共和国最严重的政治危机之一”。
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