Abstract
The past is one of the traditional sources of inspiration for political discourse; it can provide very important arguments underpinning current political objectives. Even though both French presidents analyzed in this paper, Jacques Chirac (1995-2007) and Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012), were representatives of the post-Gaullist right in the French political arena, their approach to the past and their decisions to use it for their own political purposes were very different.
The author of this paper thinks that Chirac impersonated a ""repentant"" attitude towards difficult times in the national past. Sarkozy on the other hand wanted to forge a vision of one common great history that every French person should be proud of.
Even though the positions of the two French presidents vis-a-vis the national past were different, the author of this paper argues that both of them made substantial use of memory in their communications. This paper provides quantitative lexicometry analysis comparing the use of key history-linked words in the two presidents' statements.