Late French ex-president Giscard helped reshape Europe
PARIS (AP) — No one who saw it will forget Valery Giscard d’Estaing’s imperious exit from the Elysee Palace. Seated alone at his desk, he offered a stiff televised farewell to the French who had voted him out of office, then stood and left the room. For 45 seconds, the camera kept rolling on an empty chair.
Eventually, the former French president refashioned himself as elder statesman for a united Europe, a veteran of World War II who befriended German chancellors and helped lay the groundwork for the shared euro currency. Tributes poured in from France and around Europe on Thursday after he died Wednesday of complications from COVID-19 at age 94.
“France has lost a statesman, Germany a friend and all of us a great European,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a tweet, via her spokesman.
President Emmanuel Macron praised Giscard's achievements at home and abroad of the man whose “seven-year term transformed France.”
“He allowed young people to vote from the age of 18, women to legally terminate unwanted pregnancies, divorce by mutual consent, got new rights for people with disabilities.” But he also “worked for a stronger Europe, a more united Franco-German couple, and helped stabilize international political and economic life by founding the G-7.”
Prime Minister Jean Castex praised his leadership during the economic turbulence of the 1970s, during which he “significantly advanced the building of Europe and the international influence of France, whose history he marked.”
Known affectionately in France as simply by the initials VGE, his name sometimes too long to pronounce, Giscard was president from 1974-1981. He was the model of a modern French president, a conservative with liberal views on social issues.
He was full of...