Valéry Giscard d’Estaing dies after Covid-19 diagnosis

The former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, a key architect of European integration in the early 1970s, has died at the age of 94 after contracting Covid-19.

Giscard, who served as France’s leader from 1974 to 1981, had recently been hospitalised in Tours with respiratory problems, and was released only to return to hospital in mid-November.

He died at his family home nearby after suffering from complications linked to the virus, according to a statement issued by the foundation he had set up and chaired.

“His state of health had worsened and he died as a consequence of Covid-19,” his family said in a statement to AFP.

The Foundation Valéry Giscard d’Estaing tweeted on Wednesday: “In accordance with his wishes, his funeral will take place in the strictest family intimacy.”

Giscard was known for steering the modernisation of French society during his presidency, including allowing divorce by mutual consent and legalising abortion.

He was elected president at 48, coming to power after years of Gaullist rule, and sought to liberalise the economy and social attitudes. He was credited with launching major projects including France’s high-speed TGV train network.

He lost his re-election bid, however, to the socialist François Mitterrand in the aftermath of the global economic downturn of the 1970s.

Tributes poured in across the political spectrum in France on Wednesday. Former president Nicolas Sarkozy said Giscard had “worked his whole life to reinforce relations between European nations”.

The head of President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party in parliament, Christophe Castaner, said: “His modern and resolutely progressive policies … will long mark his legacy.”

In Europe, he forged a close relationship with the then West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, and together they laid the foundations for the euro single currency, setting up the European Monetary System.

He was also an ardent Anglophile, and took office a year after Britain joined the European Economic Community.

“Complete love-hate relationship with our country,” Britain’s former Europe minister in the early 2000s, Denis MacShane, said in a tweet, calling Giscard a “big politician” who changed Europe.

Michel Barnier, the lead EU negotiator in Brexit talks with Britain, said: “For Valery Giscard d’Estaing, Europe needed to be a French ambition and France a modern nation. Respect.”

More details soon …