Fifty years ago, on April 2, 1974, Georges Pompidou died of Waldenström's disease. This brutal death plunged France and the French into stupor.
It is often seen as a parenthesis between the Jupiterian founding of the Fifth Republic by General de Gaulle and the liberal presidency of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. However, it is also considered a golden age which arouses nostalgia for a happy, prosperous and reconciled France.