Portugal: former president Jorge Sampaio has died
In this file photo taken on November 23, 2001, Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio greets upon his arrival in Lima, Peru.
AFP - EITAN ABRAMOVICH
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
The former President of the Portuguese Republic from 1996 to 2006, Jorge Sampaio, has died at the age of 81 from.
Suffering from heart and respiratory failure, he had recently been hospitalized in serious condition.
He leaves the image of an enlightened humanist.
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With our correspondent in Lisbon,
Marie-Line Darcy
Jorge Sampaio was a politically but also humanly engaged man.
Affable and courteous, discreet elegance, this redhead with blue eyes who was President of the Republic for ten years had joined the progressive anti-Salazar forces in the 1970s. Wanting to be independent, he ended up joining Mario's socialist party. Soares.
Sampaio will climb all the ranks of politics.
Member of Parliament, Secretary General of the Socialist Party, Mayor of Lisbon and then President of the Republic, he embodied the Portuguese left.
As President of the Republic, he distinguished himself on the international scene with the question of the last overseas territories of Portugal.
First with Macau during the handover to China, to whom he will avoid a Hong Kong-type fate.
And especially East Timor, invaded by Indonesia in 1975, which Jorge Sampaio will carry until the independence of the territory, making the Timorese cause a national cause.
He then cried with emotion.
After having held various positions at the UN, Jorge Sampaio has since 2013 led an association dedicated to Syrian students.
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