Often disliked or misunderstood, always ranked at the back of the pack of presidents of the Fifth Republic in opinion studies, he was a great reformer to whom history will do justice.
Centrist, liberal, European, he was first of all a gifted politician.
May 27, 1974, the new President of the Republic, on the Champs-Élysées.
AFP / AFP
Juvenile allure, feline gait, bird of prey eye: this May 27, 1974, France is getting a real facelift.
The President of the Republic she has just elected, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, is only 48 years old.
He walks towards the Elysee Palace where Alain Poher, President of the Senate, who has acted as President of the Republic since the death of Georges Pompidou, on April 2, awaits him.
At the end of a lightning campaign due to these tragic circumstances, "Giscard" has just thrown the Gaullists out of power.
Their candidate, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, was eliminated in the first round and it is this old socialist briscard of François Mitterrand that Valéry Giscard d'Estaing beat by just under 400,000 votes, with 50.8% of the vote, after having launched during the televised debate between the two rounds a formula that has become famous:
“You don't have a monopoly on the heart”.
Before the first round, it had received the support of 43 Gaullist parliamentarians led by Jacques Chirac, Minister of the Interior.
Chouchou of Georges Pompidou, Chirac will become Prime Minister of Giscard.
Bachelor at 15, Polytechnique and ENA
The new President of the Republic is neither a stranger nor a beginner.
Young Giscard (his family added “d'Estaing” to the surname in 1922) was born into politics.
His maternal great-grandfather, Agénor Bardoux, was mayor of Clermont-Ferrand, deputy then minister in 1877. His grandfather, Jacques Bardoux, senator of Puy-de-Dôme under the Third Republic.
His father, Edmond Giscard d'Estaing, mayor of Chanonat, the family's stronghold in Auvergne.
Born in Koblenz on February 2, 1926, the young Giscard obtained a double bachelor's degree at the age of 15, entered the École Polytechnique at 18. It was 1944. He was assigned to the 2nd dragon regiment, which depended on General de Lattre, and will fight in France and Germany with the liberation troops.
In 1948, he joined the ENA, the brand new administration school created by Michel Debré.
On December 17, 1952, he married Anne-Aymone de Brantes with whom he had four children: Valérie-Anne, Henri, Louis and Jacinthe, who died in 2018.
Leaving the ENA Inspector of Finances, Giscard joined the cabinet of Edgar Faure, Minister of Finance in 1954.
In 1956, he was elected deputy.
Favorable to the return of General de Gaulle, in January 1959 he was Secretary of State for the Budget to Antoine Pinay, whom he replaced in January 1962. He who had dreamed of being Minister of Finance before 30 years old was only six years behind in his career plan.
He amazes with his dizzying intellectual mechanics, his memory, his competence, his sense of pedagogy.
In the National Assembly, the young minister is able to present the state budget (in balance!) To the tribune without reading a single note.
It comes on television (in black and white) with tables and curves, to explain the economic situation of a country which experiences an annual growth of 5% and less than 2% of unemployed!
But, author of a “stabilization plan” (we did not yet speak of austerity) in 1963, with Georges Pompidou as Prime Minister, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing became unpopular.
After his laborious re-election to the Élysée in December 1965, General de Gaulle dismissed Giscard.
This departure from the government, for the future president, is worse than a dismissal:
“Not just an error, an injustice”
, he confides to his faithful among the faithful, Michel Poniatowski.
He rejoined the Financial Inspectorate and was elected mayor of Chamalières, in the suburbs of Clermont-Ferrand.
He created the “Perspectives and Realities clubs” then the National Federation of Independent Republicans, which became a pivotal group in the Assembly after the legislative elections of 1967, when the majority had only three seats in advance.
He accentuates his criticisms against de Gaulle, of whom he becomes the
“cactus”
, speaks of
“the solitary exercise of power”
and theorizes his support of a
“yes, but…”
which will become a
“no”
during the referendum of 1969 on decentralization and Senate reform.
De Gaulle is leaving.
Giscard joined forces with Georges Pompidou who, elected in June 1969, appointed him Minister of Finance in the government of Jacques Chaban-Delmas.
He will remain in his post until the death of Pompidou.
"Change in continuity"
In 1974, VGE posed on its campaign posters with his daughter Jacinthe.
Hermann Wendler / AFP
So here he is, President of the Republic.
The young president wants to open
“a new era”
which he announced during his campaign with a clever slogan:
“Change in continuity”
.
The first “people” in French political life, he posed on his campaign posters with his daughter Jacinthe.
Minister, he was already skiing under the watchful eye of the cameras, playing football before being photographed shirtless in the locker room, singing I am looking for fortune on television in Danièle Gilbert's program, accompanying himself to The Accordion…
Minister of Economy and Finance and candidate for the presidency, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing plays football in June 1973 in Chamalières, during the presidential campaign.
STF / AFP
The change begins with an attempt to open, with the lightning passage of Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber in the government, excluded (after twelve days!) For having criticized nuclear tests.
Giscard slows down the pace of La Marseillaise and moves the July 14 parade from the Champs-Élysées to Bastille-République.
The change passes above all through social reforms which suddenly make France catch up to a few years behind despite the blows of May 68: majority at 18, divorce by mutual consent, and above all the reform that l 'History will retain: at the request of VGE, Simone Veil passes the law liberalizing abortion, sometimes under the insults of a reluctant majority, thanks to the voices of the left and in the incomprehension of a part of the electorate conservative who does not see the merits of these reforms.
Economically, Giscard inherited the first "oil shock" at the end of 1973. He launched a plan to fight inflation, recommended energy saving measures in the face of the specter of the oil shortage, increased corporate taxes and the biggest taxpayers.
But at the end of 1975, the milestone of one million unemployed was crossed.
The new president also wants to
“relax”
the political life of a France which, he says,
“wants to be governed at the center”
within the framework of an
“advanced liberal society”
.
He visits prisoners in Lyon, invites garbage collectors to share his breakfast at the Élysée.
With his wife, Anne-Aymone (whom he would associate in 1978 with the ritual vows ceremony of December 31), he invited himself to dinner with the French.
Another way of keeping a campaign commitment: that of
"looking France in the eye".
October 1975. The President of the Republic invites himself to dinner with the French.
AFP ARCHIVES / AFP
But with its Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, who plays his own part by taking control of the Gaullist party, renamed RPR, the rag is burning.
The rupture is inevitable.
On August 25, 1976, it is a first under the Fifth Republic, the Prime Minister resigns with a crash, black eyes, jaws clenched in front of the cameras:
“I do not have the means that I consider necessary today to effectively assume my responsibilities. functions of prime minister. ”
End of the first act of the seven-year term.
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing appoints to Matignon the one he describes as
“the best economist in France”
, Raymond Barre.
But, in 1977, the municipal elections were catastrophic: the left gained 156 towns with more than 30,000 inhabitants.
And Jacques Chirac is elected mayor of Paris by defeating the candidate of the Élysée, Michel d'Ornano.
In 1978, the majority won, but the left had a majority vote in the first round.
Faced with the all-powerful RPR, Giscard created the Union for French Democracy, an electoral coalition supposed to hold the time of an election and which will settle in the political landscape for thirty years.
Giscard, who dreamed of convincing
"two out of three French people"
, is a victim of the crisis which weighs down any attempt at economic recovery and causes unemployment to soar.
He embarked on a proactive European policy, created with German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt the European Council, then the monetary system, launched the bases of the ecu, the European unit of account which would pave the way for the euro, and convinced its partners to have the European Parliament elected by universal suffrage in 1979.
Simone Veil will be its first president.
"Goodbye"
But Jacques Chirac took the opportunity to qualify the UDF as a
"foreign party"
and, in Parliament, it is the pitched battle between the majority and Raymond Barre.
Gradually, disenchantment sets in between the French and their president.
It is rumored that the Head of State has monarchical behavior, that he spends his time on safaris in Africa.
Splashed, at the end of 1979, by the dossier of diamonds offered to him by the emperor of the Central African Republic Bokassa, Giscard treats the affair with contempt and silence instead of defusing it.
In December 1980, however, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing still had a popularity of 53%!
But the hour of alternation has come.
In the first round of the 1981 presidential election, Jacques Chirac won 18%, behind Giscard (28.3%) and Mitterrand (25.8%).
Between the two rounds, Chirac does not give instructions to vote and affirms that
"in a personal capacity"
he will vote Giscard.
On May 10, 1981, at 8 p.m., the face of François Mitterrand emerges on television screens.
He won with 51.8% against 48.2% to Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
Nine days later, the outgoing president addresses the country slowly by saying a
“goodbye”
that makes history.
On May 21, he left the Elysee Palace as he had entered it: on foot.
But this time under the whistles.