Biography of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (born 2 February 1926 in Koblenz; died 2 December 2020 in Authon, Loir-et-Cher) was a French politician and president of the French Republic from 1974 to 1981. He presented himself as a modern, European-minded statesman of the centre right and shaped France through social reforms, economic expertise and a strong commitment to European integration. His term also reflects the tensions of the 1970s: oil shocks, unemployment, conflicts within the centre-right camp and controversies that weighed on his re-election campaign.

Origins and education

Giscard d’Estaing was born in Koblenz because his father worked there in the French administration of the occupied Rhineland after the First World War. The family came from an upper-middle-class background with strong roots in Auvergne. After schooling in Paris, Giscard d’Estaing experienced the liberation of Paris as an eighteen-year-old in August 1944 and then joined the French First Army. After the war he resumed his education, attending the École polytechnique and later the École nationale d’administration.

Finance specialist and deputy

In 1956 Giscard d’Estaing was first elected deputy for Puy-de-Dôme. Auvergne remained politically important to him; there he built a local base over decades. In Paris he became known above all as a finance politician. He worked in the financial administration, became secretary of state and later finance minister. Even before his presidency, his political profile was linked to economic competence, technocratic language and the ambition to make France more modern and more European.

Election as president

After the death of Georges Pompidou, Giscard d’Estaing won the presidential election against François Mitterrand on 19 May 1974. He was 48 and deliberately appeared younger and more open than many political figures of the postwar period. His campaign used proximity, television and the promise of a calmer, more liberal modernisation. The new president did not seek to revolutionise France, but to open it socially and make its institutions more flexible.

Reforming society

The beginning of his term brought several reforms that changed everyday life in France. In 1974 the age of majority was lowered to 18. In 1975 the reform on voluntary termination of pregnancy, defended by Simone Veil, was promulgated. The same year brought reform of divorce law, including divorce by mutual consent. These decisions made Giscard d’Estaing’s presidency an important phase of social liberalisation, even though the reforms were politically contested.

Europe, Schmidt and the G7 idea

In foreign policy Giscard d’Estaing was one of the defining European politicians of his generation. His cooperation with German chancellor Helmut Schmidt was especially close. Both saw European integration also in economic and monetary terms. Their years in office produced important impulses for the European Council, the European Monetary System and the later common currency. In 1975 the first summit of the leading industrial countries took place at Rambouillet, a forerunner of the G7 format. For Giscard d’Estaing, Europe was not decorative policy but part of French statecraft.

Economy, conflict and defeat

His presidency fell into a difficult economic period. The oil shocks and the end of the long postwar boom hit France hard. Unemployment and inflation made his modernising claim harder to sustain. Political pressure also grew: his relationship with Jacques Chirac broke down, the right remained divided, and the Bokassa diamonds affair damaged Giscard d’Estaing’s reputation. On 10 May 1981 he lost the runoff election to François Mitterrand. His presidency ended after a single seven-year term.

After the presidency

After 1981 Giscard d’Estaing did not withdraw from politics. He remained active in Auvergne, was again a deputy, served as president of the regional council and sat in the European Parliament. His later role lay above all in Europe. In 2001 he was appointed to chair the Convention on the Future of Europe, which drafted a constitutional treaty for the European Union. The draft later failed in referendums in France and the Netherlands, but his work remained an important moment in the debate over European reform.

Late recognition and death

In 2003 Giscard d’Estaing received the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen. The same year he became a member of the Académie française. These late honours showed that his significance extended beyond seven years in the Élysée Palace. On 2 December 2020 Valéry Giscard d’Estaing died in Authon at the age of 94. At the time he was the longest-lived former president of France.

Legacy

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing remains visible as the president of a transitional period. He modernised France on social questions, strengthened the country’s European course and sought a new style of political presentation. At the same time, the economic crisis, internal political breaks and debates about his relationship with Bokassa show the limits of his project. His legacy does not lie in a flawless term, but in a politics that tried to lead France after 1968 and after de Gaulle into the present of the 1970s: younger, more liberal, more technical and more European.