Death of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, 3rd President of the Fifth Republic

Former President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing during a charity gala at the Palace of Versailles, December 7, 2009. © Photo by Edouard BERNAUX / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Image

Text by: Claire Arsenault Follow

7 min

Succeeding Georges Pompidou and preceding François Mitterrand, the former French president, who was 94 years old, will have served only one seven-year term, between 1974 and 1981. He will have embodied a change of epoch for the Fifth Republic.

He died on December 2 in his home in Authon, in Loir-et-Cher, from the Covid-19.

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For more than thirty years, he will have been “the Ex”.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who hardly valued familiarity, has been designated by the French since his departure from the Elysee Palace in May 1981. His carefully staged "Goodbye", with a fixed shot on his empty chair, made an impression.

The first president to have understood the importance of the televised image, and to have worked on it, showed that he had mastered his subject.

The French were left speechless.

Elected President of the Republic at 48, a youngster for France at the time, Giscard the candidate of the Independent Republicans (RI) narrowly wins (50.81%) against the socialist François Mitterrand, highlighting his skills in economy.

Subject to say the least austere and the preserve of specialists in the 1970s. He succeeds with clear demonstrations, aligning the numbers in felt-tip pen on large vertical sheets of paper, to amaze the French who see him as the man for the job. .

"

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Minister of the Economy and Finance, at the accordion with singer Guy Béart, in Toulouse on October 11, 1971. Photo by Keystone-France / Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images

Few prominent politicians will have made so much effort to give an impression of proximity to the people.

An approach hardly paying since nobody like him will have been caricatured to this point in aristocrat.

Giscard invites himself to dinner with the average French, Giscard plays the accordion, Giscard surrounds himself with those we did not yet call “ 

 ”, but Giscard retains his old-fashioned manners and his diction from another time .

Whatever he does, he is a man of "high" and his particle name, bought by his father Edmond in the 1920s to attach the elegant d'Estaing to the plebeian Giscard, does nothing to destroy his image. elitist technocrat.

All the more so since he takes Jacques Chirac as Prime Minister, who will have a nice game to use the contrast between him, the simple man who touches everyone except his wife, and the cold and precious president.

The unlikely tandem will last two years and Chirac, in 1976, resigns with a bang, believing that he does not have the necessary means to effectively assume his functions.

In less diplomatic language, " 

 ", scolds Jacques Chirac ... An active enmity will follow that the two men will maintain until the end of their retirement, including even in the distinguished salons of the Constitutional Council.

The one called VGE was born in Koblenz, Germany, on February 2, 1926. Decorated with the Croix de Guerre 1939-1945, he was a polytechnician and an enarque.

He is a brilliant young man who succeeded in everything and who, quite logically, made what is known as a "beautiful" marriage in 1952. The chosen one, Anne-Aymone Marie Josèphe Christiane Sauvage de Brantes, is the daughter of a count and a princess.

The couple will have four children whose two daughters, Valérie-Anne and Jacinte, following their mother's family tradition, will bear names of flowers. 

"

In 1959, under de Gaulle, he was entrusted with the Secretary of State for Finance of the government of Michel Debré before taking the head of the Ministry of the Economy from 1962 to 1966 (year in which he founded the National Federation of Independent Republicans) and from 1969 to 1974. Under the rule of Giscard, in 1965, the state budget showed a surplus for the first time since the Second World War.

He manages not to anger anyone in these prosperous years, by limiting the increase in household taxes while reducing that of businesses.

Giscard distanced himself from de Gaulle in 1969 during the referendum on Senate reform and regionalization, announcing that he “ 

 ” the Gaullist project.

His position contributed to the failure of the referendum and led, as he had undertaken to do, de Gaulle to resign.

Georges Pompidou succeeds the general, but illness will shorten his mandate.

The way is clear and Giscard, after barely a month of campaigning, is in the second round against the candidate of the Union of the Left François Mitterrand who claims to be the only defender of the most modest.

Giscard will answer him, scathing, during a televised face-to-face: " 

 ".

The kind of little phrase that swallows up any opponent ... 

Unemployment and diamonds

When he accedes to the supreme office, President Giscard d'Estaing's ambition is to bring into " 

 ".

In form first, with younger and fewer ministers, he keeps his promise.

On the merits then with the end of press seizures and wiretapping, but more with the establishment of divorce by mutual consent and the legalization of voluntary termination of pregnancy, Giscard aligns the evolving French society and the legislation .

But it is also under his one and only mandate that the texts on immigration are hardened.

Weakened by two oil shocks, the economy suffers the blow and France sinks into mass unemployment: 1 million unemployed at the end of 1975 and 1.5 at the end of 1980 while inflation is growing.

That said, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing is still to this day the only president to have returned a surplus public treasury at the end of his mandate.

Believing that he had accomplished “ 

 ” Giscard declared himself a candidate for a second term in 1981. He was widely favored in front of Mitterrand and Chirac, the winning machine got stuck with the diamonds affair .

Giscard is accused by

of having

, for a value of one million francs.

Subsequently, the value of the diamonds which were given to charities, was largely revised downwards, but the damage is done, the 3rd President of the Fifth Republic lost to François Mitterrand.

Author of numerous works between historical fictions and romance novels, Giscard readily evoked his admiration for Guy de Maupassant.

In 2013, he spoke in favor of marriage for all.

From time to time, he liked to distill a few comments on the news.

Thus, with regard to Mali, he warned against " 

 ".

Finally, he had mentioned his death during a meeting with President Hollande.

" 

 " he said.

Read also: Former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing is dead

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• Valéry Giscard d'Estaing

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• Jacques Chirac