Valéry Giscard d'Estaing

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Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, 1985. (credit: ©1985 Thierry Boccon-Gibod/Black Star)

(born Feb. 2, 1926, Koblenz, Ger.) French political leader, third president of the Fifth Republic (1974 – 81). He was elected to the National Assembly in 1956. He served as finance minister under Charles de Gaulle (1962 – 66) and Georges Pompidou (1969 – 74); in his first term of office France attained its first balanced budget in 30 years, but his conservative policies helped cause a recession and he was dismissed. In 1974 he became president after defeating François Mitterrand and helped strengthen the European Economic Community. In 1981 he was defeated in another runoff election with Mitterrand. Giscard later served in the National Assembly (1984 – 89) and the European Parliament (1989 – 93). In 2001 he was appointed by the European Union to chair a convention charged with drafting a constitution for the organization.

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(b. Koblenz, Germany, 2 Feb. 1926) French; Minister of Finance 1962 – 6, 1969 – 74, President of the Republic 1974 – 81, President of the European Convention since 2002 Valéry Giscard d'Estaing came from an upper-class family with close links to business and politics. He attended two of France's élite training schools and, after a brief period as an Inspector of Finances, was elected in 1956 deputy for his grandfather's constituency in the Puy-de-Dôme. A member of the Conservative Independent Party, he broke with the majority of his colleagues by supporting de Gaulle over Algerian independence and the direct election of the presidency. He was rewarded by being made Minister of Finance in Pompidou's 1962 government, in which post he prepared a stabilization plan. The plan's austerity measures were blamed by de Gaulle for his relatively poor showing in the first round of the 1965 presidential election and led to Giscard's replacement as Finance Minister. Giscard used his period out of office to create his own political party, the Independent Republicans, and to prepare himself for a future presidential contest. He sought to distinguish himself from the Gaullist Party, by emphasizing his credentials as a European-minded progressive and criticizing the authoritarian style of the Gaullist presidency. In 1969, he played a decisive role in de Gaulle's departure from office by advocating a "no" vote in the referendum on regional reform, an action which earned him the enduring hostility of de Gaulle's most fervent supporters. Yet he immediately signalled his support for the Gaullist candidate for the presidency, Pompidou, who in turn recognized Giscard's professional competence and political strengths by making him Minister of Finance. The two men engineered a successful devaluation of the franc in 1969 and co-operated in the industrialization programme which was the hallmark of the Pompidou presidency.

In the early 1970s, Giscard used his position, and his party allies, to prepare himself for the presidential contest which Pompidou's incurable illness was bringing ever closer. When Pompidou died, in March 1974, he was able to present himself as the natural leader of a France which wanted political and social change but was fearful of the consequences of the victory of a Socialist candidate backed by the Communists. He was greatly helped in the first round of the presidential election by the personal weaknesses of his principal rival, Chaban Delmas, and by the divisions the latter's candidacy aroused in the Gaullist Party. He easily saw off Chaban's challenge in round one and then gained a narrow, but clear, victory over Mitterrand in the second, decisive ballot. The Giscard presidency began with a flurry of political and social reforms: abortion was legalized and contraception made easier, the voting age was reduced to 18, the role of the Constitutional Council was enhanced, direct elections to the European Parliament were accepted. The president tried to humanize the presidency by visiting prisons and inviting dustmen to breakfast at the Élysée Palace. Giscard's aim, which he outlined in his book Democratie française, was to create a France in which the adversarial absolutes of Gaullism and Marxism would give way to a more consensual polity. At the same time, however, he insisted on his right to exercise the full range of his presidential powers and quickly demonstrated an authoritarian style of political management. He established close relations with the German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and was able, with him, to determine the agenda of the European Community, including the creation of the European Monetary System.

His presidency faced two major problems. One was the impact on French growth of the worldwide recession which followed the oil price rises of the mid-1970s. The other was his inability to control, let alone eliminate, opposition within the coalition which had elected him. He lacked the support of a majority party in the National Assembly and soon found himself challenged by his first Prime Minister, the Gaullist Jacques Chirac. In August 1976, Chirac resigned office and immediately set about the task of reviving the Gaullist Party as a vehicle for his own presidential ambitions. Relations between the Gaullist Rassemblement pour la Republique and the Independent Republicans deteriorated and Giscard suffered a major setback when Chirac defeated his candidate in a contest for the Paris townhall. The president fought back by creating a confederation of non-Gaullist parties, the Union pour la Democratie Française, and was able to prevent a left-wing victory in the 1978 legislative elections. The respite was short-lived. Chirac and his supporters waged an unceasing propaganda war on the President, whom they accused of betraying French independence and failing to provide strong leadership. What made Giscard vulnerable was the steadily rising jobless rate, which alarmed an electorate used to virtually full employment, and the growing criticism of his personal style. He was damaged by revelations of the gift of diamonds he had accepted from the crazed "emperor" of Central Africa, Bokassa, and by stories of a near monarchical style far removed from the "citizen president" image he had portrayed in 1974. In the 1981 presidential elections, he faced opposition not only from the left but from the rejuvenated Gaullist Party under Chirac. He obtained only 28 per cent of the vote on round one of the elections and his fate was sealed when Chirac declined to offer him full support on round two. In the second round, he won only 48.25 per cent of the vote to Mitterrand's 51.75 per cent.

Giscard tried throughout the 1980s to re-establish his credentials as the natural leader of the French Right. He was re-elected to the National Assembly in 1984, headed a united conservative list for the European Parliament in 1988 – 9, and was an energetic proponent of the cause of European unity. But the opposition of Chirac's Gaullists remained implacable and he found it increasingly difficult to control his erstwhile protégés in the UDF. He was unable to muster enough support for a presidential bid in 1988 and 1995, and failed in his 1995 bid to be elected mayor of Clermont-Ferrand.

For all his undoubted talents, Giscard's career ended in disappointment. He had the misfortune to become President just at the time when the "thirty glorious years" of French economic expansionism was coming to an end. And he never managed to unify the warring factions of the French right as his two predecessors had done.

The third president of the French Fifth Republic, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (born 1926) was the architect of France's economic return as one of the leading nations of the world.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was born in Koblenz, Germany on February 2, 1926, during the French occupation of the Rhineland. Most of his childhood was spent in Clermont-Ferrand, which had been his family's home for generations. Like many upper class young men of his day, Giscard (he is commonly known by the traditional family name) moved to Paris as a teenager to continue his studies at the Lycées Jeanson de Sailly and Louis-le-Grand.

World War II interrupted his studies. At the age of 16 he joined the resistance against the Germans and collaborationist Vichy government and participated in the 1944 liberation of Paris. He then joined the French army and continued in the fight against the Germans in northern France and later in Germany.

After the war Giscard resumed his studies and was admitted to the prestigious engineering school Ecole polytechnique in 1946. After graduating he went on to the new Ecole national de l'administration established to train future bureaucrats to carry out major economic and civil responsibilities with modern management techniques. He received high academic honors. His education also included a year at the Harvard Business School.

A Rapid Rise in the Bureaucracy

In 1952 Giscard was named inspecteur des finances and began a meteoric bureaucratic career. He was one of the leaders of a new generation of civil servants who eschewed traditional norms of both neutrality and maintaining the status quo. Rather, they were committed to modernizing the French economy and thereby avoiding the problems that had afflicted France since the 1870s.

Young Giscard turned to politics earlier than many of his bureaucratic colleagues. In 1956 he was elected to parliament from his home department of the Puy-de-Dome, which he continued to represent into the 1980s. Meanwhile, he was building his career in Paris as well. In 1955 he was named deputy director of Prime Minister Edgar Faure's personal staff.

Like many bureaucrats of his generation, Giscard was ready to participate in General de Gaulle's first government of the Fifth Republic in 1959 because the general's goal of grandeur meshed neatly with his desire for economic growth. Because of his political as well as bureaucratic background, Giscard was able to start near the top. He was named deputy finance minister in that first government and was the youngest member of the cabinet.

For the first 23 years of the Fifth Republic, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing held a variety of critical posts. In 1962 he was named minister of finance and economic affairs. He resigned that post in 1966, but served as chair of the National Assembly Finance Committee for the next two years. President Georges Pompidou reappointed Giscard minister of the economy and finance after his election in June 1969. Giscard held that post until Pompidou's death in 1974. Giscard d'Estaing then ran for president (as a member of the Independent Republican Party) against the Socialist leader François Mitterrand, and won the election held immediately thereafter. He served a full term as president but in seeking re-election in 1981 he was defeated by Mitterrand.

More Successes than Failures

Throughout his career, Giscard d'Estaing was known for three things. First, he was a loyal, if occasionally critical, ally of the Gaullists. In 1962 Giscard and his new political party, the Independent Republicans (Républicains indépendents) supported the referendum on the direct election of the president and then threw their support to the Gaullists in the subsequent legislative elections. That support was critical for the formation of the first stable parliamentary majority in French republican history. The Gaullists and Giscardians were allied thereafter. There were moments of serious disagreement - for example, prompting Giscard's resignation from the cabinet in 1966 - but those problems never threatened the life of a Gaullist cabinet.

Second, Giscard was the politician of the center and right most open to progressive socio-economic reform. In his book French Democracy (1977) he advocated a more open, pluralistic system than that provided by the Gaullists. In addition, he strongly supported environmental protection, expansion of the social services, and loosening government control over economic forces and at least hinted at the possibility of a coalition government with the Socialists.

Finally, Giscard was probably best known as an economic reformer, as the leader of a generation of politician-bureaucrats who transformed France from one of the most backward into one of the most dynamic economies in Europe. Though more of a free-market capitalist than his Gaullist colleagues, Giscard was not reluctant to use the state to provide investment funds and other incentives, to encourage firms to merge, and to generally create what he called "national champions" - one or two large firms in each industrial sector that could compete effectively in international markets.

Giscard's career was not a total success. His presidency never produced the results he had hoped for in each of these areas. His alliance with the Gaullists - including his growing rivalry with Jacques Chirac, who served as his first prime minister - limited his ability to embark on political or economic reforms. Most notably, they made it impossible for him to make the kind of opening to the center left envisioned in French Democracy. He began his presidency with a series of important symbolic changes - dining with immigrant workers, stopping plans for an expressway on Paris' left bank, and holding cabinet meetings outside of Paris. Those symbols did not turn into substantive improvement in the lot of immigrants or in the quality of urban life nor into decentralization. President Giscard d'Estaing and his second prime minister, the economist Raymond Barre, did succeed in removing many state controls over the economy, but their liberalization reforms helped push France into a recession by the later 1970s.

Late in his term Giscard and those around him became embroiled in a series of scandals and were accused of high-handed leadership. As a result, Giscard lost the 1981 presidential election to the man he had defeated seven years earlier, François Mitterrand. The Gaullist and Giscardian parties then lost the subsequent legislative elections as well, and for the first time in a quarter of a century, Giscard d'Estaing found himself in opposition.

His career was in limbo after that. In 1984 he was reelected to the National Assembly in a by-election in his old district. Still, a return to the top was unlikely given his defeat in 1981 and the fact that other center and right wing politicians had become more popular.

After losing the election, Giscard remained active in political and economic arenas. In 1990, Giscard played a major role in establishing the Union for France (UPF), a right-wing political organization. In 1996 Giscard participated in The Fortune Global Forum - a world gathering of leading companies and political leaders who discussed the challenges of the global marketplace. In 1997 Giscard served as president of the Auvergne Regional Development Agency - a regional institution focusing on regional development and economic promotion and composed of forty members including local and regional collectivities, financial establishments, large companies, small and medium-sized businesses

Giscard reflected as much as any one individual could the personality of the group that dominated the Fifth Republic's first quarter century. Though he came from the "old France" of the nobility and small town politics, he also personified the "new France" of technically competent bureaucrats who sparked the modernization that turned France into one of the most powerful and dynamic countries in the world.

Further Reading

For an overview of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's career, see J. R. Frears, France in the Giscard Presidency (London, 1981). For his own ideas, see Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, French Democracy (1977).

For biographic resources about Valéry Giscard d'Estaing see: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Edition 5, Columbia University Press, 1993.

For on-line resources about Valéry Giscard d'Estaing see: ,, and.