Hey Dodo, nice to find you here then (I followed your way into eurotrib.com, this place looks nice!).

Chirac is a master politician, who indeed always tries to face the direction in which the wind is blowing to avoid getting his hair messed up.

Like Jérôme says, his infamous "bruit et l'odeur" quote is indeed encountered everywhere, from a line in Asterix and Cleopatra (the movie), to a song by a popular music group from here in Toulouse, Zebda, whose chorus is "le bruit et l'odeur, le bruit du marteau-piqueur".

It's also become a common pun/joke among so many French people. For example, when a friend of mine tells me that I wrote a very vivid description of something, I generally reply "et encore je n'ai pas rajouté le bruit et l'odeur", which means "well imagine if I also added the noise, and the smell ..."

ps: Chirac when he was a young communist ...