France: François Léotard, former Minister of Culture and Defense, died at the age of 81

Former French Defense Minister François Léotard. AFP - MIGUEL MEDINA

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Deputy of the Var, mayor of Fréjus for 20 years, Minister of Culture and then of Defence in a period of cohabitation, François Léotard, was a right-wing politician, former boss of the Union for French Democracy (UDF) from 1996 to 1998. He had been sentenced by the Court of Justice of the Republic to a two-year suspended prison sentence in the Karachi case.

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Originally from Cannes in the south of France, passed by the ENA, François Léotard was both mayor of Fréjus from 1977 until 1997, regional councillor, deputy of the Var, and twice ministers. This is to say if political action was at the heart of the life of this man, often ridiculed by his brother Philippe, actor, who proclaimed himself "minister of the high" while he was in government.

In the years 1985-1990, he was one of the leading quadras of the French right with Alain Madelin and Gérard Longuet, who also entered the National Assembly in 1978. These young wolves of politics, darlings of the media, displayed an uninhibited liberalism, inspired by the coming to power in the United States of Ronald Reagan.

Minister of Culture in the government of Jacques Chirac, under the presidency of François Mitterrand, from 1986 to 1988, he renounced the idea of being a candidate in the presidential election. In 1993, he became Minister of Defense in the government of Edouard Balladur, which placed him on the front line in Operation Turquoise, a highly criticized intervention by French troops in Rwanda, under a UN mandate.

► Read also: Rwanda: the tormented memory of Operation Turquoise

In 2001, he left politics, disgusted with its "prostitutional" aspect of flattery and lies. The rest of his life will be marked by business. Sentenced in 2004 to ten months in prison suspended for money laundering and illicit financing of a party, two years in prison suspended and a fine of 100,000 euros in one of the aspects of the Karachi case in 2021, a complex case that had established the existence of retrocommissions on arms contracts with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan intended to partially finance the presidential campaign of Edouard Balladur in 1995.

► Read also Balladur and Léotard judged in the financial aspect of the Karachi case

He devoted his last years to introspection through writing with a book dedicated to his brother, actor, poet and singer, Philippe Léotard, "A mon frère qui n'est pas mort", who died in 2001, followed by other novels or memoirs.

Emmanuel Macron announced his death on Twitter.

François Léotard served the state and carried a great idea of culture. With his passing, we lose a free spirit, a man of books and commitment. His native Var, the France he defended, the Republic he loved are now experiencing a great loss.

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) April 25, 2023

Several tributes followed. That of the current Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu.

Emotion at the announcement of the death of my predecessor François Léotard.

A man of conviction and commitment, the armies remember him as a man deeply attached to the sovereignty and independence of France. https://t.co/liv6ZaqEcv

— Sébastien Lecornu (@SebLecornu) April 25, 2023

Or Renaud Muselier, president of the South region.

The #RegionSud, its region, bows to the memory of François Léotard.

Minister of Defense, Culture, 4 times deputy of the Var, mayor of Fréjus for 20 years, he was a statesman and territories.

I think with emotion of all his family and those who loved him. pic.twitter.com/WxKS4hmHDr

— Renaud Muselier (@RenaudMuselier) April 25, 2023

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