Valéry Giscard d'Estaing

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**Valéry Giscard d'Estaing**
President of the French Republic

In office 19 May 1974 – 10 May 1981
Preceded by	Georges Pompidou followed by Alain Poher (interim)
Succeeded by	François Mitterrand

Born	2 February 1926 Koblenz, Germany
Political party	Union for French Democracy, Union for a Popular Movement from 2002
Spouse	Anne-Aymone Sauvage de Brantes

Valéry Marie René Giscard d'Estaing [IPA: vɑleʀi mɑʀi ʀəne ʒiskɑʀ dɛstɛ̃] (born 2 February 1926 in Koblenz, Germany) is a French center-right politician who was President of the French Republic from 1974 until 1981. He is currently the only former French president alive.

His tenure as President was marked by a rupture with its predecessor on social issues such as divorce, contraception and abortion and his attempts to modernize his country and his office, notably launching such far-reaching infrastructure projects as the high-speed TGV train and the turn towards reliance on nuclear power as France's main energy source. However, the economic downturn that followed the 1973 energy crisis, marking the end of the "thirty glorious years" after World War II, combined the official discourse that the "end the tunnel was near", while the presidency was facing opposition on both sides with the unification of the left by François Mitterrand and the rise of up-and-comer Jacques Chirac who resurrected Gaullism on a right-wing opposition line, and bad public relations caused his unpopularity to grow at the end of his term, and he failed to secure re-election in 1981.

He is a proponent of the United States of Europe and, having limited his involvement in national politics after his defeat, he became involved with the European Union. He notably presided over the Convention on the Future of Europe that drafted the ill-fated Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. He was elected to the French Academy to the seat that his friend and former President of Senegal Léopold Sédar Senghor held. As former President, he is also entitled to a seat on the Constitutional Council, although he had refused this prerogative until recently.

1 Biography
2 Personal
3 External links

[edit] Biography

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing is the son of Edmond Giscard d'Estaing (1894 - 1982), a French civil servant, and his wife, May Bardoux, who was a daughter of French senator and academic Jacques Bardoux and a great-granddaughter of French minister of state education Agénor Bardoux. Despite the addition of "d'Estaing" to the family name by his grandfather, Giscard is not descended from the extinct noble family of Vice-Admiral d'Estaing, that name being adopted by his grandfather in 1922 by reason of a (see [1]) distant connection to another branch of that family.

He studied at Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand, Ecole Gerson and Lycées Janson-de-Sailly and Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He graduated from the École Polytechnique and the École nationale d'administration (1949 - 1951).

Elected in Parliament as an "independent" (i.e. conservative) in 1956, he was Secretary of State for Finances from 1959 to 1962, then minister of Finances and Economic Affairs from 1962 to 1966 under Prime Minister Georges Pompidou, then minister of Economy and Finances under prime ministers Pierre Messmer and Jacques Chaban-Delmas from 1969 to 1974.

[edit] Presidency

Head of pro-gaullist conservatives from 1962 to 1974; in 1978, he created the UDF (Union for French Democracy) in which Christian Democrats and conservatives merged.

In 1974, he was elected President of France. His presidency was marked with a desire to introduce various reforms and modernize French society. He for instance pushed for the development of the TGV high speed train network.

He pursued a controversial course in foreign policy. In 1977, in the Opération Lamantin, he ordered French fighter jets to deploy in Mauritania and go to war against the Polisario guerrilla fighting against Mauritanian military occupation of Western Sahara. But not even overt military backing proved sufficient to rescue the French-installed Mauritanian leader Mokhtar Ould Daddah, as he was overthrown by his own army some time later, and a peace agreement was signed with the Sahrawi resistance.

Most controversial, however, was his involvement with the Bokassa regime of the Central African Republic. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was at first a friend of its ruler, Jean-Bédel Bokassa; he supplied Bokassa's regime with much financial and military backing. However, the growing unpopularity of that government led Giscard to begin distancing himself from Bokassa.

In 1979 French troops helped drive Bokassa out of power and restore former president David Dacko. This was hardly much of a change however, and more of a cosmetic facelift, as d'Estaing's support of Dacko was support for a cousin of Bokassa. Furthermore, Dacko had appointed his cousin Bokassa as head of the Central African Republic's military in the first place in 1965.

In a related incident, Giscard was reported by the Canard Enchaîné to have accepted diamonds as personal gifts from Bokassa--who fled to France with looted millions from Central Africa Republic's treasury, and was accepted in France regardless. Presidential official gifts legally are property of the Republic of France instead of d'Estaing. Giscard supporters contended that the diamonds were industrial-grade and thus had no sizeable monetary value.

Giscard was defeated in the French Presidential Election of 1981. At the time, former Giscard prime minister Jacques Chirac ran against Giscard in the first round of runoff voting and declined to call his voters to elect Giscard, though he declared that he himself would vote for Giscard. Since then, Giscard has always attributed his defeat to Chirac, and he is widely said to loathe Chirac. Certainly, on many occasions, Giscard has criticized Chirac's policies, despite supporting Chirac's governing coalition.

[edit] Later career

From 1986 until 2004 he was the president of the regional council of Auvergne. In this position, he tried to encourage tourism to the région, founding the "European Centre of Volcanology" and theme park Vulcania — a much maligned decision, since this park loses money and is often described as a white elephant.

Following his defeat in the regional elections of March 2004, he decided to leave partisan politics and to take his seat in the Constitutional Council as a former president of the Republic. Some of his actions there, such as the one to campaign in favor of the Treaty establishing the European Constitution, were criticized as unbecoming to a member of this council, which should embody nonpartisanship and should not appear to favor one political option over the other. Indeed, the question of the membership of former presidents in the Council was raised at this point, with some suggesting that it should be replaced by a life membership in the French Senate.

In 2003, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was admitted to the Académie française, amid controversy; critics pointed out that Giscard had written only a single novel, Le Passage, of dubious quality.

He is currently serving as:

President of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions
A member of the Académie française (French Academy)
As a de jure member of the French Constitutional Council

[edit] European activities

VGE when he served as President of the Convention on the Future of Europe

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing has, throughout his political career, always been a proponent of greater European integration. In 1978, he was for this reason the obvious target of Jacques Chirac's Call of Cochin, denouncing the "party of the foreigners".

From 2002 - 2003 he served as President of the Convention on the Future of Europe.

On 29 October 2004, the European heads of state, gathered in Rome, approved and signed the European Constitution based on a draft strongly influenced by Giscard's work at the Convention.

Although the Constitution was rejected by French voters in May 2005, Giscard continues to actively lobby for its passage in other European Union states. Speaking at the London School of Economics on February 28, 2006, he said that "The rejection of the Constitutional treaty by voters in France was a mistake that should be corrected."

Giscard opposes Turkey joining the European Union, saying to French Newspaper Le Monde, "In my opinion, it would be the end of Europe."

[edit] Personal

His name is often shortened to "Giscard" or even "VGE" by the French media. A less flattering nickname is l'Ex (the Ex), as he is, as of 2006, the only surviving former president of France and he is generally considered to be bitter about his failure to be re-elected. He has been the only surviving ex-president since he left office, with the exception of a brief period between Francois Mitterrand's retirement in 1995 and death in early 1996.

On 17 December 1952, Giscard married Anne-Aymone Sauvage de Brantes, a daughter of Count François Sauvage de Brantes, who died in a concentration camp in 1944, and his wife, the former Princess Aymone de Faucigny-Lucinge. They have four children: Valérie-Anne, Henri, Louis and Jacinte. His son Louis is a French conservative Representative, his son Henri is the President of the tourism company Club Méditerranée.

In 2003 he received the Charlemagne Award of the German city of Aachen. He is also a Knight of Malta.

He is an uncle of French artist Aurore Giscard d'Estaing, who is married to the American actor Timothy Hutton.

Preceded by: Wilfrid Baumgartner	Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs 1962 – 1966	Succeeded by: Michel Debré
Preceded by: —	President of the National Federation of Republicans and Independents 1966 – 1974	Succeeded by: Michel Poniatowski
Preceded by: François-Xavier Ortoli	Minister of the Economy and Finance 1969 – 1974	Succeeded by: Jean-Pierre Fourcade
Preceded by: Interim President Alain Poher	President of France 1974 – 1981	Succeeded by: François Mitterrand
Preceded by: Georges Pompidou and Joan Martí Alanis	Co-Prince of Andorra 1974 – 1981 with Joan Martí Alanis	Succeeded by: François Mitterrand and Joan Martí Alanis
Preceded by: Jean Lecanuet	President of the Union for French Democracy 1988 – 1996	Succeeded by: François Léotard
Preceded by: Léopold Sédar Senghor	Seat 16 Académie française 2003 –	Succeeded by: Incumbent
Preceded by: none	Chair of the G8 1975	Succeeded by: Gerald Ford

Presidents of the French Fifth Republic
Charles de Gaulle • Georges Pompidou • Valéry Giscard d'Estaing • François Mitterrand • Jacques Chirac

Current members of the Constitutional Council of France
President of the Council Pierre Mazeaud
Members Valéry Giscard d'Estaing \| Simone Veil \| Jean-Claude Colliard Olivier Dutheillet de Lamothe \| Dominique Schnapper \| Pierre Joxe Pierre Steinmetz \| Jacqueline de Guillenchmidt \| Jean-Louis Pezant

* as of 2006