Fifty years ago, on April 2, 1974, Georges Pompidou died of Waldenström's disease.
This brutal death, which plunged France and the French into stupor, overlooks his unfinished seven-year term.
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.
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In
Poetry and Politics
, Georges Pompidou emphasizes that
“
in the life of nations greatness and mediocrity alternate
.
”
With the departure of General de Gaulle, the Fifth Republic saw myth give way to moderation, lyrical epic transform into prose, flamboyance give way to moderation.
But it was far from falling into the mediocrity which characterizes the Quarante Piteuses begun in the 1980s.
Also read: In Paris, why is Georges Pompidou's legacy so controversial?
Georges Pompidou first anchored in…
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