When Jacques Chirac was used to transport cannabis

Jacques Chirac’s family announced the death of the former president of the Republic this morning at the age of 86. A man of many facets, Jacques Chirac will always be remembered as the president of our childhood. While recent revelations from the «dealer to the stars,» Gérard Fauré, have brought a few stories to light about cocaine, it’s another anecdote that brings us here. Jacques Chirac was used to transport cannabis at the Cannes Film Festival.

Appearing as a guest on LCI in 2014, Philippe Vandel revealed that Canal+ crews had smuggled «hash» into the Cannes Film Festival inside the head of a puppet depicting the former president.

«It’s an extraordinary story that I’ve never told before. One day, they transported a huge lump of hash. On the way to Cannes, there were semi-trailers loaded with equipment, and they hid it inside the head of a puppet of Jacques Chirac, who was president at the time,» explained Philipp Vanderl. Why Jacques Chirac’s head and not someone else’s? «Because if they’d been caught by the police, the headline would have been: 1.5 kg of hashish in Chirac's head«, the journalist quipped.”.

It should be noted, however, that Jacques Chirac held a position very conservative on drugs, even though Lionel Jospin, who was prime minister at the time, had dared to raise the issue of decriminalization.