{"id":42349,"date":"2020-12-03T05:57:46","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T05:57:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/former-french-president-valery-giscard-d-estaing-dies-after-covid-19-diagnosis\/"},"modified":"2020-12-03T08:19:01","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T08:19:01","slug":"former-french-president-valery-giscard-d-estaing-dies-after-covid-19-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/former-french-president-valery-giscard-d-estaing-dies-after-covid-19-diagnosis\/","title":{"rendered":"Former French president, Val\u00e9ry Giscard d\u2019Estaing dies after Covid-19 diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Giscard, who served as France\u2019s leader from 1974 to 1981, had recently been hospitalised in Tours with respiratory problems, and was released only to return to hospital in mid-November.<\/p>\n

He died at his family home nearby after suffering from complications linked to the virus, according to a statement issued by the foundation he had set up and chaired.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis state of health had worsened and he died as a consequence of Covid-19,\u201d his family said in a statement to AFP.<\/p>\n

The Foundation Val\u00e9ry Giscard d\u2019Estaing tweeted on Wednesday: \u201cIn accordance with his wishes, his funeral will take place in the strictest family intimacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

He made one of his last public appearances on 30 September last year for the funeral of another former president, Jacques Chirac, who had been his prime minister.<\/p>\n

Giscard was known for steering the modernisation of French society during his presidency, including allowing divorce by mutual consent and legalising abortion.<\/p>\n

He was elected president at 48, coming to power after years of Gaullist rule, and sought to liberalise the economy and social attitudes. He was credited with launching major projects including France\u2019s high-speed TGV train network.<\/p>\n

He lost his re-election bid, however, to the socialist Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand in the aftermath of the global economic downturn of the 1970s.<\/p>\n

In France, Giscard is remembered for his radical reform drive which included the legalisation of abortion, the liberalisation of divorce and lowering the voting age to 18.<\/p>\n

Tributes poured in across the political spectrum in France on Wednesday. Former president Nicolas Sarkozy said Giscard had \u201cworked his whole life to reinforce relations between European nations\u201d.<\/p>\n

The head of President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s ruling party in parliament, Christophe Castaner, said: \u201cHis modern and resolutely progressive policies \u2026 will long mark his legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Together they launched the European Monetary System (EMS), a precursor of today\u2019s single currency, the euro.<\/p>\n

Michel Barnier, the lead EU negotiator in Brexit talks with Britain, said: \u201cFor Valery Giscard d\u2019Estaing, Europe needed to be a French ambition and France a modern nation. Respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was also an ardent Anglophile, and took office a year after Britain joined the European Economic Community.<\/p>\n

\u201cComplete love-hate relationship with our country,\u201d Britain\u2019s former Europe minister in the early 2000s, Denis MacShane, said in a tweet, calling Giscard a \u201cbig politician\u201d who changed Europe.<\/p>\n

It was at Giscard\u2019s initiative that leaders of the world\u2019s richest countries first met in 1975, an event that evolved into the annual summits of the Group of Seven club.<\/p>\n

With a more relaxed presidential style than his predecessors, \u201cVGE\u201d was sometimes seen in public playing football, or the accordion. He also hosted garbage collectors to breakfast and invited himself to dinner at the homes of ordinary citizens.<\/p>\n

Giscard \u201cdominated almost naturally with his presence, his distinction, his language, his liveliness and intuitions,\u201d said fellow centrist Francois Bayrou, a former minister and presidential candidate.<\/p>\n

Born to a well-to-do French family, Giscard was firmly part of the elite; he studied at France\u2019s elite Ecole Polytechnique and the National Administration School.<\/p>\n

Aged just 18, he joined the French resistance and took part in the second world war liberation of Paris from its Nazi occupiers in 1944. He then served for eight months in Germany and Austria in the run-up to Germany\u2019s capitulation.<\/p>\n

He launched his political career in 1959, becoming finance minister in 1969.<\/p>\n

In 1974, while in power, VGE \u2013 married since 1952 to the aristocratic Anne-Aymone (n\u00e9e) Sauvage de Brantes \u2013 was reported to have crashed a borrowed sports car into a milk lorry in Paris in the early hours, with a celebrated actress in the passenger seat. After leaving the \u00c9lys\u00e9e he wrote books mentioning his affairs and a novel that hinted that Diana, the Princess of Wales, had not been able to resist his charms. He later insisted the stories were untrue and \u201cfiction\u201d.<\/p>\n

After his defeat in 1981 \u2013 which he said left him with \u201cfrustration at a job unfinished\u201d \u2013 he remained active in centrist politics, first regaining a seat in the French parliament and then serving in the European parliament.<\/p>\n

In 2001 was selected by European leaders to lead work on the bloc\u2019s constitutional treaty \u2013 which French voters then rejected. In 2004, after losing his legislative seat, Giscard ended his active political career.<\/p>\n

In 2020, he was accused of sexual harassment in a legal complaint lodged by a German journalist. Ann-Kathrin Stracke claimed he repeatedly touched her bottom during an interview at his office on Boulevard Saint-Germain, in Paris, at the end of 2018. She lodged a complaint on 10 March with the Paris public prosecutor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Olivier Revol, VGE\u2019s chief of staff, said the former president had \u201cno recollection\u201d of the interview or the incident.<\/p>\n

\"Val\u00e9ry<\/figure>\n

Source” The Guardian <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{The former French president Val\u00e9ry Giscard d\u2019Estaing, a key architect of European integration in the early 1970s, has died at the age of 94 after contracting Covid-19.}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[234],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-42349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-the-guardian"],"bylines":[{"id":234,"name":"The Guardian","slug":"the-guardian","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":78}],"contributors":[{"id":234,"name":"The Guardian","slug":"the-guardian","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":78}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42349"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=42349"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=42349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}