Paris (AFP)

Chiraquien pugnace and figure of the Parisian right, the deputy LR Claude Goasguen died of a cardiac arrest Thursday morning at the age of 75, while he was "recovering" from the coronavirus, his family announced to AFP .

After three weeks in intensive care because of the Covid-19, the former minister and mayor of the XVI arrondissement of Paris "was better" and "was walking again". But cardiac complications led to his death at 9:00 a.m. at the Corentin-Celton hospital in Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine).

"Claude Goasguen was a committed man, who never ceased to give substance to the ideas of the right and invested himself with heart and conviction in the fight against anti-Semitism and in the defense of Christians in the East", his family said in a statement.

"Reached by the Covid-19 in mid-March, he had survived 22 days of intensive care and was gradually recovering in a medical rehabilitation service," add his relatives.

The President of the Republic welcomed, in a press release "a great political voice which will be missed in the republican debate", "a high figure of Parisian politics and the republican right".

Skilled debater, willingly caustic, Claude Goasguen had been sitting almost continuously in the National Assembly since 1993. He was also an ephemeral Minister of State Reform in the first government of Alain Juppe in 1995.

Very moved at the Palais Bourbon when Jacques Chirac died in September, he praised "a model" who had "taught him everything about politics".

On Twitter, former President Nicolas Sarkozy paid tribute to a "whole" man, who "loved the terrain and the proximity" and "dedicated his life to his commitment".

On the right, many voices, including the chairman of the party LR Christian Jacob, greeted a man with a "high verb", a strong temper, a "polemicist" full of "panache".

- "Smash" and "plume" -

"Claude was a wonderful friend of Israel who bravely fought anti-Zionism," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement.

There was "Cyrano" in him, he "loved nothing as much as the clash of battles", described on Twitter his colleague MP Guillaume Larrivé.

MoDem boss François Bayrou also paid tribute to a "friend for our twenty years".

Marine Le Pen spoke of the memory of a "respected and experienced parliamentarian" in a tweet.

The leader of the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon described "a tough adversary" to "courteous urbanity in private" and to "the exquisite counter-revolutionary culture. (....) I will miss him as an interlocutor".

According to a close friend, "there was always an emotional dimension in his decisions" and "he had a reputation for being a seducer".

Liberal assumed, successively UDF, then Liberal democracy (Alain Madelin), Claude Goasguen had been member of the council of the founders of the UMP in 2002.

Councilor of Paris from 1983, he was mayor of the 16th arrondissement of the capital from 2008 to 2017, before choosing his mandate as deputy because of the prohibition of the cumulation of mandates.

He had become in November the political adviser of Rachida Dati in the Parisian municipal campaign, after having maintained tense relations with the candidate LR, who declared Thursday "upset". He had previously advocated an alliance between his party and LREM with the aim of "beating Anne Hidalgo", the socialist mayor.

In 2016, he became the voice of the virulent opposition of certain inhabitants of the very chic 16th arrondissement of Paris to the installation of a center for homeless people on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne. He compared the project to "Sangatte", in reference to the old center for migrants in Calais, before giving its approval a year later to the opening of a second center.

"We rarely agreed", but "I liked his strong personality, his outspokenness, his devastating humor", testified the socialist mayor of Paris.

Born March 12, 1945 in Toulon, he was in his youth a supporter of French Algeria and the far-right candidate Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour for the presidential election in 1965. He also chaired the Corpo d'Assas, a close student union from the West, but had denied any membership of this far-right political movement, unlike Gérard Longuet, Alain Madelin or Patrick Devedjian.

A lawyer by profession, a knight of the Order of the Legion of Honor and the National Order of Merit, Mr. Goasguen was married and the father of two children.

© 2020 AFP