{"id":104317,"date":"2020-12-03T12:45:05","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T04:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=104317"},"modified":"2020-12-03T12:45:07","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T04:45:07","slug":"ex-french-president-giscard-destaing-dies-of-covid-at-94","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=104317","title":{"rendered":"Ex-French president Giscard d\u2019Estaing dies of Covid at 94"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bssnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Ex-French-president-Giscard-dEstaing-dies-of-Covid-at-94.jpg\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.bssnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Ex-French-president-Giscard-dEstaing-dies-of-Covid-at-94.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>PARIS, Dec 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; Former French president Valery Giscard d\u2019Estaing, a leading advocate of European integration who led his country into a new modern era, has died of Covid-19, his family said. He was 94.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Giscard, who had been in hospital several times in recent months for heart problems, died late Wednesday \u201csurrounded by his family\u201d at the family home in the Loire region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHis state of health had worsened and he died as a consequence of Covid-19,\u201d the family said in a statement, adding that his funeral would be strictly private, according to his wishes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to his predecessor, saying Giscard\u2019s seven-year term had \u201ctransformed France\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHis death has plunged the French nation into mourning\u201d, Macron said, describing Giscard as \u201ca servant of the state, a politician of progress and freedom\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Giscard made one of his last public appearances on Sept 30 last year for the funeral of another former president, Jacques Chirac, who had been his prime minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He became the 20th century\u2019s youngest president at 48 when in 1974 he beat his Socialist rival Francois Mitterrand, to whom he then lost after his seven-year term in 1981 in a failed re-election bid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He is remembered for his radical reform drive, which included the legalisation of abortion, the liberalisation of divorce and the lowering of the voting age to 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Together with his German counterpart chancellor Helmut Schmidt,  they launched the European Monetary System (EMS), a precursor of today\u2019s single currency, the euro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was at Giscard\u2019s initiative that leaders of the world\u2019s richest countries first met in 1975, an event that evolved into the annual summits of the Group of Seven (G7) club. &#8212; NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PARIS, Dec 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; Former French president Valery Giscard d\u2019Estaing, a leading advocate of European integration who led his country into a new modern era, has died of Covid-19, his family said. He was 94. Giscard, who had been in hospital several times in recent months for heart problems, died late Wednesday \u201csurrounded by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":104318,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[209],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104317"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/104318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}