Former president of France Valéry Giscard d’Estaing has died, French media report. He was 94 years old.
Giscard d’Estaing was admitted to a hospital in Tours with a reduced heart function a few weeks ago. According to the foundation that bears his name, he died of covid-19. He died on Wednesday at his home in the Loir-et-Cher department.
In September he had also been treated for a lung infection in a hospital in Paris.
Reforms
Born in 1926, Giscard d’Estaing was president of France from 1974 to 1981. He was known as a liberal politician and he carried out various reforms. During his presidency, new laws on divorce, abortion and birth control were introduced. The death penalty was also abolished.
After losing the elections in 1981 to the Social Democrat François Mitterrand, Giscard d’Estaing became a winegrower, but he also remained politically active. For example, he was chairman of the Convention for the Future of the European Union, which drafted a European constitution in 2004.
Since January 21, 2017, he was the longest-living former president of France.