PARIS, April 24, 2007 (AFP) – French President Jacques Chirac, who leaves office next month, is to move from the Elysee palace to a chic apartment on the capital’s Left Bank, a French newspaper reported Tuesday.
    The apartment is being lent to the Chiracs by the family of the former Lebanese president Rafic Hariri, who was assassinated in Beirut in February 2005. Chirac was a close personal friend of Hariri.
    Bernadette Chirac is already overseeing the moving of their furniture and possessions to the 180 square-metre (1,900 square-feet) apartment, which has a view across the River Seine to the Louvre museum, said the daily Le Parisien.
    The building lies not far from the historic Ecole des Beaux Arts (Fine Arts School) in a neighbourhood known for up-market antique dealers and art galleries. However it is north-facing and fronts onto the Quai Voltaire, which is a major traffic artery.
    According to Le Parisien, several photographers stationed outside the apartment were told to leave by police Monday after a complaint from Bernadette Chirac.
 A member of the Chirac entourage said that because their various commitments the couple had not yet had time to find a place of their own, but stressed that their final home would not be paid for by the state.
    The move is a major event for Chirac, 74, who has hardly lived in his own home for more than 30 years.
    In 1974 he was elected prime minister for the first time and moved into the official residence at the Hotel Matignon. Later he had a suite of apartments at the Hotel de Ville when he was Paris mayor for 18 years, and in 1995 he moved as president to the Elysee.
    He is to retire after the run-off election on May 6, which is being contested by right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal.
    In addition to the Quai Voltaire apartment, he will have access — as a former president — to a suite of offices at the nearby National Assembly. He will also have his own office at a foundation for ecology and cultural dialogue that is being set up in his name later this year, the paper said.
    Meanwhile France’s Official Gazette published details of Chirac’s personal estate — in accordance with a 1962 law governing the conduct of presidents when they leave office.
    The couple’s chateau in the Correze department of southwest France was valued at 500,000 euros (680,000 dollars), and a country cottage in the same region was put at 60,000 euros. A Paris apartment which they owned in 1995 has been made over to their daughter Claude.
    The Chiracs declared personal belongings and artworks worth 580,000 euros and 74,000 euros in the bank. They also said they possess a 1984 Peugeot 205.