Paris (AFP)

The death at 94 of former President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing as a result of Covid-19 prompted a shower of tributes on Thursday to the "modernizer" and to the convinced European, whose mandate was shattered by the economic crisis .

"VGE", who presided over France for a single term, from 1974 to 1981, died Wednesday evening "as a result" of Covid-19 after a recent hospitalization in Tours for heart failure, surrounded by his family in his property. 'Authon in the Loir-et-Cher.

His distant successor Emmanuel Macron will pay tribute to him in a televised address Thursday at 8:00 p.m.

During the night, he had already greeted the memory of a head of state whose "seven-year term transformed France".

In accordance with the wishes of the late president, his funeral will take place "in the strictest family intimacy", according to his family.

But a mass in Paris could be organized in his memory.

The former president should be buried in Authon with his youngest daughter Jacinte, who died in 2018 from a long illness.

Mr. Giscard d'Estaing and his wife Anne-Aymone are also parents of Valérie-Anne, Henri and Louis.

Hospitalized several times in recent months, one of the last public appearances of "VGE" dates back to September 30, 2019, during the funeral in Paris of Jacques Chirac, who was both his Prime Minister and his indirect successor at the head of the state.

- Letter from Mrs Chirac -

Despite the notorious differences between the two men, Jacques Chirac's widow, Bernadette, wrote a letter of condolence to Anne-Aymone Giscard d'Estaing.

The Secretary of State for European Affairs, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, traveling in Auvergne, laid a wreath at midday in the historic stronghold of VGE in Chamalières, whose current mayor is his son Louis.

Germany "loses a friend" and "a great European", reacted Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose head of diplomacy recalled the "decisive influence" of Giscard on Franco-German relations, thanks to her friendship with former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

His British counterpart Boris Johnson paid tribute to a "great modernizer of France".

The President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, praised a president of "great intelligence", "modern and reformer".

But he believes that unlike Emmanuel Macron, sometimes seen as his heir, VGE had a "vision", especially European.

"Free man who brought France into modernity" for the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti, he is "a modernizer and a convinced European" for the President of the Constitutional Council Laurent Fabius.

- Misunderstood -

"He blew a great wind of modernity on French society and gave birth to an immense hope of overtaking and rallying", reacted to AFP François Bayrou, who succeeded him at the head of his UDF party.

The two former presidents still alive also paid tribute to him: Nicolas Sarkozy greeted "a man who has done honor to France", and François Hollande a "resolutely European" president, but who "has not always been understood".

Born in Koblenz (Germany) in 1926, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, a pure product of the French elite, a graduate of Polytechnique and ENA, established himself in the political landscape from the beginning of the Fifth Republic by occupying various ministerial posts from 1959.

However, it was in opposition to Gaullism that he managed to conquer the Elysee Palace in 1974, by first winning on the right against Jacques Chaban-Delmas, heir claimed to General de Gaulle, then by beating on the wire the socialist candidate François Mitterrand.

Whoever aims to bring together "two French out of three" behind his policy multiplies societal reforms: lowering of the majority to 18 years, legalization of abortion or creation of a State Secretariat for the Status of Women.

Giscard also imposed a new style, which intends to lighten the presidential pomp, at the risk of fueling trials in demagoguery when he invites himself to dinner with the French or plays the accordion.

- "Goodbye" -

But it is above all the second half of his seven-year term, weighed down by the crisis born of the oil shocks, and marked by the suspicion of business that gives breath to its scorners.

On May 10, 1981, he failed to be re-elected against François Mitterrand, with whom he would weave over time a reciprocal "esteem", while his "rivalry" with Chirac remained stubborn.

After his famous "goodbye" and the chair left empty during a final televised address, VGE goes through a deep depression, with "the frustration of the unfinished work".

Despite everything, he becomes again one of the leaders of the right by again leading the UDF.

But, certain of the re-election of François Mitterrand, he did not compete in the presidential election of 1988, nor in the following, credited with 2% of the vote.

Shortly before his death, however, he said he was convinced that, if he had come forward, he would have won against Balladur and Chirac.

While Giscardism gradually disappears from the political landscape, the former president pursues one ultimate goal: to become president of Europe.

In 2001, he headed the Convention for Europe, responsible for drafting a European constitution, which would be rejected by referendum.

The leaders of the European institutions greeted a "great European" to whom the construction of the EU "owes a lot".

His end of life was tarnished by the opening of a sexual assault investigation after a complaint from a German journalist.

© 2020 AFP