FORMER FRENCH PRESIDENT DIES AFTER CONTRACTING COVID
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the modern-minded conservative who became president of France in 1974 vowing to transform his traditionbound, politically polarized country, only to be turned out of office seven years later after failing to accomplish his goals, died Wednesday at his family home in central France. He was 94.
His foundation said the cause was complications of COVID-19.
The scion of families that traced their lineage to French nobility and a polished product of France’s best schools, Giscard d’Estaing had been encouraged to believe that it was his destiny to rise to the pinnacle of government, but he was ousted from the presidential palace in 1981, roundly defeated in his re-election bid by socialist Francois Mitterrand.
Giscard d’Estaing had come to office declaring he would take hold of the overbearing presidency he had inherited from Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou and make it more responsive to the will of the people. But the French government remained centralized under his administration.
As president, Giscard d’Estaing was hindered by an economic slowdown in Western Europe after more than two decades of almost continuous postwar expansion. But he drew praise for presiding over an expansion of nuclear energy that supplied France with abundant cheap electricity and helped its industries remain competitive. And the Franco-German alliance, a cornerstone of Western European unity after World War II, was at its strongest under him, thanks largely to his close friendship with Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany.
Valéry Marie René Georges Giscard d’Estaing was born Feb. 2, 1926, in Koblenz, Germany, where his father, Edmond, was serving as a finance ministry official for the French occupation of the Rhineland after World War I. His mother, May Bardoux, belonged to a family active in conservative politics.
In 1952, he married AnneAymone Sauvage de Brantes, a descendant of a steel dynasty. They had two sons and two daughters.
After stepping down from the presidency, Giscard d’Estaing remained active in politics, returning several times to the National Assembly.