Former President of the Republic Valéry Giscard d'Estaing died this Wednesday evening at the age of 94, his entourage announced.
The former head of state, who was staying in his property in Authon (Loir-et-Cher), was admitted to "
the cardiology department
" of the Tours hospital on November 17 for "heart failure. », Had then indicated his entourage.
In September, the former head of state had already been hospitalized at the Georges Pompidou hospital in Paris for "a slight infection in the lungs".
VGE had already been hospitalized several times at the Georges Pompidou Hospital a few years ago, in cardiology for the placement of stents.
Youngest president of the Fifth Republic when he was elected in 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing had made one of his last public appearances on September 30, 2019 during the funeral in Paris of another President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac , who was its Prime Minister from 1974 to 1976.
Embodiment of triumphant modernity
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was only 48 years old when he acceded to the Élysée in 1974, beating François Mitterrand on the wire, and thus became, in a France which buried the Trente-Glorieuses and digested May-68, the first non-Gaullist to seize the Élysée.
He then wanted to be the embodiment of a triumphant modernity, resulting from the liberal center-right and Christian Democrat which built post-war Europe.
Polytechnician and Enarque, from a large bourgeois family, VGE entered the government in 1959, multiplying ministerial posts in the Economy and Finance in the 1960s and 1970s. However, on May 10, 1981, he failed to do so. re-elect against François Mitterrand.
A convinced European, in 2001 he took the head of the Convention for Europe, responsible for drafting a European constitution, which would be rejected by referendum.
A brilliant economist, author of several books, he was elected in 2003 to the Académie française.