Valery Giscard d'Estaing

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Giscard d'Estaing (1978)
Signature of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing

Valéry René Marie Georges Giscard d'Estaing (pronunciation: [valeˈʀi ʒisˌkaʀdɛsˈtɛ̃] listen ? / I ; * February 2, 1926 in Koblenz , German Reich ; † December 2, 2020 in Authon , Loir-et-Cher department ) was a French politician who was President of France from 1974 to 1981 . Audio file / audio sample

Previously, he was chairman of the liberal Républicains indépendants as well as finance and economy minister 1962–1966 and 1969–1974. After his presidency he was chairman of the bourgeois party UDF he founded and from 1986 to 2004 he was president of the Auvergne regional council . In 2002 he joined the new center-right UMP party . As "Elder Statesman" Giscard was President of the European Constitutional Convention in 2002/03 and was a member of the Académie française from 2003 and of the French Constitutional Council from 2004 .

Family and youth

Memorial stone at the place of birth of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in the Rhine enclosures of Koblenz

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was the son of financial inspector Jean Edmond Lucien Giscard d'Estaing (born March 29, 1894 in Clermont-Ferrand , † August 3, 1982 in Chanonat ) and May Marthe Clémence Jacqueline Marie Bardoux (1901-2003) in Koblenz born where his father was stationed in the Rhineland from 1921 as chief finance inspector of the French occupation army. Shortly after the birth of his son, he was transferred to Paris in July 1926, where he served in the Ministry of Finance , later in the Conseil d'Etat and was Mayor of Chanonat from 1932 to 1947. He also became a member of the Institut de France .

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing started school in Clermont-Ferrand, Puy-de-Dome ( École Gerson , Lycée Blaise Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand) before the high schools in Paris Lycée Janson-de-Sailly and le Louis-Grand Lycée visited . In 1942 he completed a double baccalauréat (two-time Abitur) in philosophy and mathématiques élémentaires . After graduating from high school, he re-entered the Lycée Louis-le-Grand for a preparatory year in order to apply to study at elite universities .

But the Second World War interrupted this planning. Paris had been under German occupation since June 1940. In August 1944, at the age of 18, he joined the Resistance . With the liberation of Paris he was assigned to the group that protected the politician Alexandre Parodi .

In the final phase of the Second World War , Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was used as a soldier. With the Forces françaises libres he took part in the 1st Army under General de Lattre de Tassigny on the advance to Germany. On April 26, 1945 he was in the first tank to enter Constance .

He then resumed the preparatory year at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and applied to study at two elite universities . First he was accepted into "X" , the École polytechnique , in 1946 and graduated there in 1948. Immediately thereafter, he aimed to study at the École nationale d'administration (ENA). His entry was facilitated by the decree of July 19, 1948, which allows a polytechnician to enter without a preliminary examination.

Before he began studying at ENA, he traveled to the United States and Canada : He found a temporary position as a teacher at the Collège Stanislas in Montreal . On January 3, 1949, he joined the ENA. He completed an eight-month internship in Saarland , at the end of which he wrote a dissertation entitled Le Rattachement économique de la Sarre à la France (“The economic connection of the Saarland to France”), for which he received the grade 19/20. After graduating from the ENA as the sixth (of 385) in his class (doctorate “Europe” 1949–1951), he joined the General Inspectorate of Finance.

In 1952 he married Anne-Aymone Sauvage de Brantes , with whom he had four children:

The doctor Robert Giscard (1923–1993) and his brother, the agricultural scientist Alain Giscard, both brothers of the GAEC (French "agricultural cooperative corporation") of the Taizé Community , are his cousins.

Early political career

In the same year, Giscard d'Estaing began his professional career in finance inspection, following the example of his father. He stayed there until 1956, but resigned this task to accept a mandate for the Puy-de-Dôme department, for which his grandfather had held a seat for a long time. On January 2, 1956 he was elected to the National Assembly for the right-wing liberal Center national des indépendants et paysans (CNIP) . From 1956 to 1958 Giscard d'Estaing was a member of the French UN delegation.

In 1962 he finally became State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance as the youngest member of the cabinet and achieved considerable success in budget, stability and currency policy. The CNIP split in the same year due to the constitutional reform initiated by President Charles de Gaulle , according to which the president should in future be directly elected by the people. While the majority and leadership of the CNIP rejected the change and expressed mistrust in the government, Giscard was one of the supporters. With a group of other MPs (including Raymond Marcellin , Jean de Broglie ), he left the CNIP and founded the group of the Républicains indépendants (independent republicans).

A short time later, at the suggestion of Prime Minister Georges Pompidou, he was appointed Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs and served until 1966. But his popularity quickly waned. After he had only just succeeded in asserting himself against the rival candidate in the next election in 1965, President de Gaulle transferred the ministry to Michel Debre in early 1966 . Until the beginning of his presidency in 1974, Giscard d'Estaing retained his mandate.

Chairman of the Républicains indépendants (FNRI) and "Super Minister"

After his dismissal as minister, he tried to make the Républicains indépendants more independent of the Gaullist coalition partner. Until then, the group had only existed as a parliamentary group, now Giscard founded the Fédération nationale des républicains et indépendants (FNRI, "National Alliance of Republicans and Independents") as an extra-parliamentary party organization and became its first chairman. Although the independent Republicans continued to make agreements with the Gaullist UDR in elections in order to secure parliamentary seats in the majority electoral system, and were involved in the government as a small coalition partner, Giscard increasingly expressed public criticism and cautiously separated himself from the Gaullist government majority. This can be summarized as the strategy of “oui, mais…” (“Yes, but…”).

For the first time he openly acknowledged the objectives of European unification and, in this context, supported the application of the United Kingdom to join the European Economic Community in 1969. His party was defeated in the 1968 election to the National Assembly . In the 1969 referendum on Senate and regional reform, the FNRI made no election recommendation: Most of its MPs and ministers were in favor, but Giscard personally declared to vote against it publicly.

Giscard presented himself close to the people and relaxed, which made him stand out from most French politicians (especially de Gaulle), who appeared formal and distant in public. At a television program recorded in his apartment, he appeared in a sweater instead of a suit and tie. From a party meeting he took the metro instead of a company car to the Ministry of Finance. A public performance in July 1969, where he played the accordion in a plaid shirt, caused a sensation. Giscard also had herself photographed and filmed while playing football or polo, skiing and swimming in the sea. His family was not shielded from the public either, but was often seen by his side. This was more in line with a style known from American politicians and led to the comparison of Giscard with John F. Kennedy .

When President de Gaulle resigned in 1969, triggering an early presidential election , Giscard was considering running. The timing seemed too early to him because he feared that defeat would endanger his long-term political career. Instead, Giscard and his Républicains indépendants supported the Gaullist candidate Georges Pompidou. As a “reward” for this support, Giscard was reappointed Minister of Finance and Economy after Pompidou's election victory. As such, he was a member of Prime Minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas' cabinet from 1969 to 1972. Even Pierre Messmer , Prime Minister from 1972 to 1974, confirmed Giscard in this function. During this time, the German-speaking media dubbed him “super minister”.

When Pompidou's death in 1974 once again required an early presidential election , Giscard d'Estaing presented himself as a candidate. However, he did not want to be perceived as a party candidate of the Républicains indépendants , but as a non-partisan personality of the middle class. In declaring his candidacy, he addressed “all of you, UDR voters, independent republicans, centrists, reformers.” In addition to his own party, the smaller bourgeois parties Center démocrate, Center républicain, CNIP and - a few days before the election - nominated him - the left-liberal Parti radical led by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber as its candidate for the presidency. In addition, there was a renegade wing of the Gaullists - whose prominent representative was Jacques Chirac - who spoke out against the official UDR candidate Chaban-Delmas and in favor of Giscard d'Estaing.

Giscard d'Estaing succeeded in asserting himself against Chaban-Delmas in the first round of the 1974 presidential election; but he was still weaker than François Mitterrand . On May 19, 1974, after a television debate with Mitterrand, he won the runoff election of the top two in the first ballot with 50.81% of the vote, so that, at the age of 48, he took over the office of French President in May 1974, at the age of 48.

Presidency

Giscard with Jimmy Carter 1978
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (r.) Together with Giulio Andreotti , Fukuda Takeo , Jimmy Carter and Helmut Schmidt at the G7 summit in Bonn (1978)

From 1974 to 1981 Giscard d'Estaing was President of France. As president, he made Chirac prime minister. Chirac resigned in 1976 following tensions between the two. He was replaced in August by Raymond Barre , whom the President described as “the most outstanding economist in France” and with whom he prepared a comprehensive plan for economic and social reform.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's tenure was marked by stagflation since the first oil crisis in 1973/74. The French franc lost significant value against the D-Mark. (Details below)

During his term of office, socio-political reform projects fell, such as legislation on divorce by mutual agreement or on abortion . The age of majority has been reduced from 21 to 18 years. Giscard d'Estaing called himself an opponent of the death penalty . He commuted most of the death sentences to life imprisonment . However, three convicts, whom he refused pardon , were executed under his presidency, most recently Hamida Djandoubi in 1977 as the last victim of the death penalty in France . Giscard d'Estaing did not put the abolition of the death penalty on the political agenda. It was only officially abolished in 2007 through a constitutional amendment.

Giscard d'Estaing (2nd from left) with German President Walter Scheel (3rd from left), 1975

As a staunch supporter of the European construction process, his vision consisted of a federation of states modeled on the United States of America even before he entered active politics . In this context, as the third alternative to a supranational Europe and a nation-state, he established the regular holding of summits of the heads of state and government of the EC (today the European Council ) and supported the expansion of the powers of the European Parliament , in particular with regard to questions of Use of budget. Direct elections based on general and direct voting principles were introduced for the European Parliament for the first time in 1979.

Giscard d'Estaing maintained France's economic and political position vis-à-vis the African states as well as the superpowers. He repeatedly emphasized the full freedom of political choice in his country, which should never be degraded to the “province of a superpower”. He met Leonid Brezhnev in Warsaw in May 1980 with no tangible result, after cautiously commenting on the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan . He called on the Federal Republic of Germany to consolidate the role of Europe in world politics, which increased the (then limited) German leeway in foreign policy.

Still inspired by the will for modernization , he simplified the protocol regulations for the presidential palace and also tried to keep them closer to the people. On the evening of his election, in addition to speeches in French, he also gave a short improvised speech in English, which was very unusual for French politicians at the time and astonished those present.

Giscard d'Estaing's term of office was marked by the consequences of the two oil crises (1973/74 and 1979/80). In both cases there were oil price shocks , which exacerbated the already existing inflation. The dependence of all industrialized countries on (cheap) oil became clear. France responded to this, among other things (driven by André Giraud ) with a massive expansion of nuclear energy (see nuclear energy in France ).

Given the need to save energy, Giscard introduced summer time in 1975 . From around 1975 there was a new form of mass unemployment . There were not enough jobs for the baby boomers . Even the Barre cabinet (from March 1976) was unable to change this. Together with the German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt , Giscard led the states of the European Community , as a result of the collapse of the world currency system in Bretton Woods and the rapid inflation associated with the oil price shocks , steps to overcome them and to introduce a European Monetary System (EMS) to reduce it initiate exchange rate risks between the member states. From the related to the EMS basket of currencies created invoice currency ECU ( European Currency Unit ) was the precursor of the euro . Thanks to the great economic and financial policy agreement between d'Estaing and Schmidt, the two politicians friend developed the plan of informal meetings of the economically most important states USA, Canada , Japan , France , Great Britain , Germany and Italy ( G7 ), which took place in the Rambouillet Castle met for the first time at the invitation of Giscard d'Estaing for “ fireside chats ” without a fixed agenda, minutes and large staff.

Giscard d'Estaing also made a number of symbolic decisions during his presidency: in 1974, when he took office, he ordered the national anthem - La Marseillaise - to be played at a slower pace in future in order to make it sound less belligerent and more state-supporting. This was reversed seven years later by his successor François Mitterrand. After the end of his tenure, Giscard went even further and also questioned the martial text of the hymn. In 1974/75 he abolished the official celebrations for Liberation Day on May 8th (anniversary of the surrender of the German Wehrmacht in 1945) and instead introduced a “Europe Day”. It no longer seemed appropriate to Giscard to celebrate the victory over a neighboring country with which France was now closely allied and friends. However, former Resistance fighters and Holocaust survivors as well as Gaullists, Communists and Giscard's later successor, the socialist François Mitterrand, protested. He reintroduced the celebrations on May 8th after he took office in 1981.

Giscard and his wife gave the President's traditional New Year's Address in 1975. In 1977 the President initiated a new series of stamps for the French Post , on which the revolutionary icon Marianne was replaced by an image of the Sabine Hersilia (a figure in Roman mythology, based on a painting by Jacques-Louis David ), who was supposed to be a symbol of reconciliation and unity . In addition, the word République française was shortened to France on the stamps . Under Mitterrand, the French post office returned to the revolutionary icon Marianne and the inscription République française .

At the end of his term of office, a scandal broke out when it became known that the dictator and future emperor of the Central African Republic , Bokassa , had given Giscard diamonds on his private or state visits . Ultimately, Giscard returned the gifts, but his reputation had suffered some damage, especially with the 1981 presidential election .

Before the second ballot, the ( runoff ), in 1981, there was again a duel between the two remaining candidates, Giscard d'Estaing and Mitterrand. In 1974 it was a radio broadcast; on May 5, 1981, the debate took place on television. In the ballot a fortnight later, Giscard missed the required absolute majority with 48.25% of the vote and had to vacate his post for François Mitterrand .

After the presidency

Giscard d'Estaing speaks at an election rally of the Federation of Free Democrats in Dresden in 1990 .

Although he was entitled to a seat on the Constitutional Council ( Conseil constitutionnel ) as a former president , he could not take this seat as long as he was still involved in active politics as a member of parliament or regional president (until 2004). Another privilege of his role as ex-president since 1985 was an annual allowance from the state for security precautions, the payment of employees, official housing and vehicle. In 2016 this payment amounted to 2.5 million euros, the highest amount among the three ex-presidents living at the time.

Giscard initially retired to the departmental and regional politics in the Auvergne , where he was elected to the General Council of the Puy-de-Dôme department in 1982 as a representative of his home canton Chamalières . He held this position until 1988. He wanted to base his political comeback on the clubs Perspectives et Réalités , political clubs of entrepreneurs and the self-employed who are located in the middle-class and liberal center and support Giscard. In addition to the four founding parties, these were the fifth component of the bourgeois party alliance UDF, which Giscard co-founded . On September 23, 1984 he was elected to a vacant seat in the National Assembly in a by-election. He was a member until 1989. In addition, Giscard became chairman of the Auvergne Regional Council in 1986 and remained so until 2004.

In 1988 he took over the management of the UDF. He believed that all bourgeois forces (especially the UDF and the Gaullist RPR Chiracs) must cooperate in order to be more successful in the following elections. In the European elections in 1989 , Giscard was the top candidate on the joint list of RPR and UDF (“L'Union”). This had to accept significant losses and only got 28.9% of the vote and 26 of the 81 French seats (14 fewer than before). Giscard was a member of the European Parliament from 1989 to 1993. During this time he was initially chairman of the liberal parliamentary group (predecessor of today's ALDE ). The European parliamentarians of the UDF sat partly in the liberal, partly in the Christian Democratic EPP group . Giscard therefore endeavored to unite these two factions, but this failed. Then at the end of 1991 he moved to the EPP parliamentary group together with the other liberal UDF MPs in the European Parliament, which was a major loss for the European liberals. Giscard then agreed with Chirac that the European parliamentarians of the Gaullist RPR, which at that time still belonged to the national-conservative RDE parliamentary group, should switch to the EPP (which did not take place until 1999). This turned from a mere Christian Democratic faction into a large reservoir for the center-right camp in the European Parliament. From 1989 to 1997 Giscard was also President of the International European Movement .

Before the end of the legislative period, he gave up his seat in the European Parliament in order to lead the UDF into the French parliamentary elections in 1993 . The center-right alliance “Union pour la France” made up of RPR and UDF with Jacques Chirac at the top was able to grow strongly. The UDF won 215 seats, the best result in its history. Giscard himself was then again a member of the National Assembly from Puy-de-Dôme. In 1995 he narrowly failed in the fight for the mayoral office of Clermont-Ferrand - which had been in the hands of the left since 1935: he was defeated by the incumbent Roger Quilliot of the Socialists with 49.1% in the runoff election (in this second ballot Giscard was also supported by the right-wing extremist Front National ).

For some time he devoted himself to writing. In 1994 he published a novel.

Giscard resigned from the Parti républicain in 1995 after party chairman François Léotard ousted all Giscard supporters (Giscardiens) from the party leadership . However, he remained a direct member (adherent direct) of the UDF, which he chaired until 1996. Then he was replaced in this position by Léotard. In the 1995 presidential election, Giscard supported - in deviation from the official UDF line - the candidacy of Jacques Chirac and not Édouard Balladur . As a reason he referred to Balladur's Armenian descent: He was "of oriental origin" with a "complex culture" and tended to "original proposals". This represents an uncertainty. Chirac, on the other hand, comes from the Limousin , embodies central France and is more in line with "French culture, custom and way of life".

He died on December 2, 2020 on his estate in Authon as a result of COVID-19 .

European Convention, Constitutional Judge, and Elder Statesman

Giscard d'Estaing at the 50th Munich Security Conference (2014)

In the 2000s, Giscard continued to take care of issues of European unity. At the European summit in Laeken in 2001 , he was finally appointed President of the European Convention (Convention sur l'Avenir de l'Europe). The task of the convention was to simplify the voting procedures at European level, to summarize the various agreements and to work out a draft European constitution from them . The draft was presented on July 15, 2003.

Because of this activity as President of the European Convention, he received the Charlemagne Prize of the city of Aachen in 2003 . In the run-up to the referendum on the European Constitution in 2005, he supported the supporters' campaign. From his point of view, the rejection was unexpected. In the meantime, signed by the 25 member states, the treaty in its current version failed due to the rejection of the French (May 2005) and Dutch (June 2005) by referendum.

After the death of Léopold Sédar Senghor , he was elected on December 11, 2003 with 19 of 34 votes to the vacated seat 16 of the Académie Française .

In 2002 Giscard moved from the UDF to the Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP), the center-right-wing group initiated by Chirac. As list leader of the UMP-UDF party union for the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne in the regional elections in 2004, he was defeated in the second ballot to Pierre-Noël Bonté from the PS , who together with the other left-wing parties received the majority of the regions. When he lost his post as chairman of the regional council, which he had occupied since March 1986, he made the decision to finally withdraw from active politics and only perform his duties in the constitutional council.

Deviating from his political neutrality as a judge in the Constitutional Council, Giscard declared his support for the UMP candidate Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 and 2012 presidential elections . In October 2012, however, he sent a video message to the founding congress of the Union des démocrates et indépendants (UDI), to which he wished “good luck”. In the 2017 presidential election, he spoke out in favor of François Fillon , the candidate for Les Républicains, which has since emerged from the UMP .

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty on January 23, 2013 at the International German School in Paris , Giscard d'Estaing gave a speech about Franco-German friendship .

miscellaneous

As French President, Giscard d'Estaing was also co- prince of Andorra .

He was fluent in the German language .

The "Soupe aux Truffes V. G. E.", a black truffle soup covered by a puff pastry dome and prepared by top chef Paul Bocuse on the occasion of his elevation to Knight of the French Legion of Honor, is named after Giscard (VGS). It was taken by the then President together with the honored one.

Origin from the d'Estaing family, acquisition of the Estaing castle

Giscard d'Estaing's family comes from the Auvergne . The noble surname Giscards goes back to a decree approving the name change of the French Council of State of June 17, 1922, in which his father Edmond Giscard and his two uncles Joseph and Philippe (and all their descendants) were given the right to use the surname d'Estaing from her grandmother Lucie-Madeleine d'Estaing, who died in 1844, and add it to her surname.

The castle and barons from the village of the same name Estaing ( Aveyron department , southern France) trace their line of ancestors back to Richard the Lionheart . There has been a castle there in the Haute Vallée du Lot since the 15th century, which Giscard d'Estaing bought together with his brother Olivier, former mayor of Estaing, and a common cousin in February 2005 for 750,000 euros. Between 1836 and 2000 the nuns of the Joseph Sisters of Lyon lived here . After the restoration, it will become a cultural and meeting place where concerts, meetings and conferences will be held and his personal records as President of the Convention Européenne will be archived.

The science and leisure park "Vulcania"

Giscard was enthusiastic about the volcanic landscape of the Massif Central . In the 1990s he began his commitment to the establishment of a science and amusement park in Vulcania . Against the opinion of the responsible expert committee, he got his own architect , the Austrian Hans Hollein , and continued to operate the project. Construction work began in 1997 and the inauguration took place on February 20, 2002. The planned construction costs were exceeded many times over.

Awards

Publications

  • Démocratie Française ( French Democracy ), essay, 1976.
German translation by Joachim A. Frank: French Democracy , S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1977, ISBN 3-10-024501-6 .
  • Deux Français sur Trois (German: Two out of three French ), essay, 1984.
German translation by Gerd Hits: Two of three French , Defap, Ingolstadt 1987, ISBN 3-926357-01-0 .
  • Le Pouvoir et la Vie (Eng. Power and Life - Encounter ), Memorandum, Part 1: La Rencontre, Compagnie 12, Paris 1988.
German translation by Widulind Clerc-Erle, Martina Drescher: Power and Life: Memories , Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-550-07936-2 , 2nd edition 1991, ISBN 3-548-34701-0 .
  • Le Pouvoir et la Vie (Eng. Power and Life - Conflicts ), Memorandum, Part 2: L'Affrontement, 1991.
  • Le Passage (dt. The passage ), novel 1994.
  • Dans cinq ans, l'an 2000 ( in five years the year 2000 ), 1995.
  • Les Français, Réflexion sur le Destin d'un Peuple (German: The French, Reflections on the Future of a People ), 2000.
  • Giscard d'Estaing - Entretien avec Agathe Fourgnaud (German Giscard d'Estaing - conversation with Agathe Fourgnaud )
  • Giscard d'Estaing présente la Constitution pour l'Europe ( Giscard d'Estaing presents the European Constitution ), 2003.

literature

Web links

Wikiquote: Valéry Giscard d'Estaing  - Quotes
Commons : Valéry Giscard d'Estaing  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Edouard Pflimlin: Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, ancien président de la République, est mort. In: lemonde.fr. December 2, 2020, accessed on December 2, 2020 (French).
  2. ^ Georges Valance: VGE - Une vie. Flammarion, 2011, p. 80.
  3. ↑ a b Christine Pütz: Party change in France. Presidential elections and parties between tradition and adaptation. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004, p. 148.
  4. ^ Roland Höhne: The party system of France. In: Oskar Niedermayer u. a .: The party systems of Western Europe. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006, pp. 161-187, on p. 174.
  5. ^ Christine Pütz: Party change in France. 2004, pp. 148-149.
  6. ^ Sabine Seggelke: France's President in Political Communication. Public relations in the fifth republic. Lit Verlag, Berlin / Münster 2007, p. 213.
  7. ^ Matthias Waechter: Helmut Schmidt and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. In search of stability in the crisis of the 1970s. Edition Temmen, 2011, p. 53.
  8. ^ Christine Pütz: Party change in France. 2004, p. 149.
  9. ↑ Up with Fifi. In: Der Spiegel , No. 9/1970, p. 93.
  10. ↑ Klaus-Peter Schmid: At the levers of the economy - recipes without effect. ( Memento from April 24, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) In: Die Zeit , June 16, 1972.
  11. ^ Christine Pütz: Party change in France. 2004, pp. 149-150.
  12. ^ Andrew Knapp, Vincent Wright: The Government and Politics of France. 5th edition, Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2006, p. 274.
  13. ^ Otmar Emminger : D-Mark, dollar, currency crises. Memoirs of a former Bundesbank President , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-421-06333-8 (Note: Emminger was President of the Deutsche Bundesbank from July 1, 1977 to December 31, 1979 )
  14. ↑ Yves Bizeul: Faith and Politics. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004, p. 244.
  15. ↑ Hinrich Hudde: The Marseillaise. Myth of the Revolution. In: Winfried Engler : The French Revolution. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1992, pp. 135-138, on p. 136.
  16. ^ A b Sabine Seggelke: France's President in Political Communication. Public relations in the fifth republic. Lit Verlag, Berlin / Münster 2007, pp. 267–268.
  17. ↑ Marc Ferro: May 8, 1945 did not exist in France. In: Rudolf von Thadden, Steffen Kaudelka: Memory and History. 60 years after May 8, 1945. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2006, pp. 51–59, on p. 58.
  18. ↑ Angelika Praus: The end of an exception. France and the turning point of 1989/90. Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2014, p. 84.
  19. ↑ Le timbre "Marianne": Une tradition républicaine perpétuée Assemblée nationale, July 14, 2013.
  20. ↑ Werner Rittmeier: France on demand post. An approach with many pitfalls, but also with a lot of profit. In: philatelie-digital.de , No. 1/2016, p. 8.
  21. ^ Julien Absalon: Valéry Giscard d'Estaing coûte 2.5 millions d'euros par an à l'État. RTL.fr, February 2, 2016.
  22. ^ Thomas Jansen, Steven Van Hecke: At Europe's Service. The Origins and Evolution of the European People's Party. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2011, pp. 65–66, 225.
  23. ^ David Hanley: Beyond the Nation State. Parties in the Era of Integration. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp. 125-127.
  24. ↑ Julie Cloris: En 1995, Giscard a choisi "le Limousin" Chirac plutôt que ... "l'oriental" Balladur. In: Le Parisien , March 31, 2017
  25. ^ After corona complications: French ex-President d'Estaing is dead. Tagesschau.de, December 3, 2020.
  26. ^ Ivan Valerio: Video: la bénédiction de Valéry Giscard d'Estaing à l'UDI de Jean-Louis Borloo. In: Le Lab politique , Europe 1, October 26, 2012.
  27. ^ Federal Office of Administration : Giscard d'Estaing visits the German School Paris ( Memento from February 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Franco-German Festival 2013 ( Memento from February 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  28. ↑ Michaela Wiegel, Charles Jaigu: Valéry Giscard d'Estaing: “In truth, the threat is not as great today as it was then”. Frankfurter Allgemeine, November 23, 2015, accessed on June 23, 2018 .
  29. ↑ Soupe aux truffes - Black truffle soup "Valéry Giscard d'Estaing". Deutsche Welle, May 26, 2005, accessed December 3, 2020 .
  30. ↑ Pierre-Marie Dioudonnat, Le Simili-Nobiliaire français, Sédopols, Paris, 2010
  31. ^ Philippe du Puy de Clinchamps, La Noblesse , Puf, 1959, réédité en 1996
  32. ↑ Michel Sementéry, Les Présidents de la République française et leur famille , éditions Christian, 1982, section "Valéry Giscard d'Estaing"
  33. ^ Henry Coston, Le Secret des dieux , 1968, p. 180.
  34. ^ Rudolf Balmer: volcanic landscape as a leisure park ( Memento from October 1, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  35. ↑ Reply to request to the Office of the Federal President by email
  36. ↑ a b Awards of Portuguese medals to foreign citizens on the website of the Portuguese President ( Chancelaria das Ordens Honoríficas Portuguesas ) (Portuguese)
  37. ^ Jean Schoos : The orders and decorations of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the former Duchy of Nassau in the past and present. Publishing house of Sankt-Paulus Druckerei AG. Luxembourg 1990. ISBN 2-87963-048-7 . P. 344.
predecessor Office successor
Georges Pompidou Co-Prince of Andorra
1974–1981 		François Mitterrand
personal data
SURNAME Giscard d'Estaing, Valery
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Giscard d'Estaing, Valéry René Marie Georges (full name); VGE
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French politician, President of France (1974–1981)
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Koblenz , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH December 2, 2020
Place of death Authon , Loir-et-Cher department