Former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing, who led his country into a new modern era and onto a firmly pro-European path, died late Wednesday of Covid-19, his family said.
Giscard, who had been in hospital several times in the last months for heart problems, died “surrounded by his family” at the family home in the Loire region.
“His state of health had worsened and he died as a consequence of Covid-19,” the family said in a statement sent to AFP, adding that his funeral would be strictly private according to his wishes.
He made one of his last public appearances on September 30 last year for the funeral of another former president, Jacques Chirac, who had been his prime minister.
Giscard became last century’s youngest president at 48 in 1974, beating his Socialist rival Francois Mitterrand, to whom he then lost after his seven-year term in 1981 in a failed re-election bid.
His presidency marked a clear break from the Gaullist conservatism of postwar France which had been dominated by Charles de Gaulle himself, and his successor Georges Pompidou.
In France he is remembered for his radical reform drive which included the legalisation of abortion, the liberalisation of divorce and lowering the voting age to 18.
In Europe, he helped drive moves towards a monetary union, in close cooperation with his German counterpart chancellor Helmut Schmidt with whom he became friends and whose leadership years almost dovetailed with his own.
Source: AFP
