Mr Chirac, 78, has broken his self-imposed silence on the French president, who succeeded him in June 2007, twice in the past week.
Mr Chirac branded his onetime protégé "nervous", "impetuous" and untrustworthy in his memoirs, saying he did not share the same "vision of France" as Mr Sarkozy, widely expected to run for a second term.
He meanwhile heaped praise on Mr Hollande, currently frontrunner in a contest to obtain the Socialist Party's backing for the election next April, saying he had the stuff of a true "statesman".
Mr Chirac made his latest outburst while alongside Mr Hollande during a tour of the museum housing his many presidential gifts in the south-central Corrèze region of France.
Both men have their electoral roots in the region, where Mr Hollande is currently MP. » | Henry Samuel, Paris | Sunday, June 12, 2011
