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Giscard d’Estaing was by far the oldest living president of France.
“His health has deteriorated and he has died of COVID-19,” the family told AFP. The president’s relatives stressed that his funeral will be strictly private, fulfilling the will of the deceased.
The current president, Emmanuel Macron, paid tribute to his predecessor and assured that “seven years in Giscard d’Esteaing as head of state” transformed France.
“His death has brought the French people into mourning,” Macron said. The president pointed out that Giscard d’Esteaing was “an official, a politician of progress and freedom.”
In mid-November and September, Giscard d’Estaing was admitted to the hospital.
He participated in the battles for the liberation of Paris during World War II, was a minister in the government of General Charles de Gaulle and a member of the French Academy.
V. Giscard d’Estaing was born in 1926. in the present German city of Koblenz.
1956 he was elected a member of the French National Assembly in 1959-62. he was Secretary of State for Finance in France, and from 1962 to 1966 – Minister of Economy and Finance. 1969 re-elected Minister of Finance and Economy, and in 1974 after the sudden death of President Georges, Pompidou was elected President in early elections.
He served as president from 1974 to 1981, when he lost the elections to Francois Mitterrand.
Giscard d’Estaing, 48, was elected president and became the youngest leader in the republic until the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017.
As president, Giscard d’Estaing has carried out a series of radical reforms: legalizing abortion, liberalizing divorce, and lowering the minimum voting age to 18.
1989-1995 he was a member of the European Parliament (EP).
In 2003, Giscard d’Estaing received the Charlemagne Prize for his contribution to the constitution of the European Union (EU).
The Giscard d’Esteaing presidency marked a clear break with postwar French golista conservatism, dominated by Charles de Gaulle and his political successor, Georges Pompidou.
In France, Giscard d’Esteaing is remembered for radical reforms, which included legalizing abortion, liberalizing divorce, and lowering the minimum voting age to 18.
In Europe, he helped achieve monetary union by working closely with German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, with whom he befriended and whose years of leadership almost coincided with his presidency.
Together, they established the European Monetary System (EMS), the precursor to the current single currency, the euro.
“For Valery Giscard d’Estaing, Europe had to be a French aspiration and France a modern state. Respect,” said Michel Barnier, the European Union’s main Brexite negotiator.
Giscard d’Estaing has “succeeded in modernizing French political life,” said former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He praised the late “great mind” used to manage “even the most difficult international problems.”
Like Schmidt, Giscard d’Esteaing firmly believed in strong ties to the United States.
After his death, France “lost a state figure who decided to open up to the world,” said Francois Hollande, a socialist who replaced Sarkozy as president. He praised the deceased as a “strongly European” man who helped strengthen the unity of France and Germany.
It was at the initiative of Giscard d’Esteaing that the leaders of the world’s richest countries held their first meeting in 1975. That event culminated in the annual G-7 summits.
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