Valéry Marie René Giscard d'Estaing (born
2 February,
1926) is a
French centre-
right politician who was
President of the
French Republic from 1974 until 1981.His tenure as President was marked by a more liberal attitude on social issues—such as divorce, contraception, and abortion—and attempts to modernize the country and the office of the presidency, notably launching such far-reaching infrastructure projects as the high-speed
TGV train and the turn towards reliance on
nuclear power as France's main energy source. However, his popularity suffered from the economic downturn that followed the
1973 energy crisis, marking the end of the "
thirty glorious years" after
World War II, unfortunately combined with the official discourse that the "end of the tunnel was near". Furthermore, Giscard faced political opposition from both sides of the spectrum: from the newly-unified left of
François Mitterrand, and from a rising
Jacques Chirac, who resurrected
Gaullism on a right-wing opposition line. All this, plus bad
public relations, caused his unpopularity to grow at the end of his term, and he failed to secure re-election in 1981.
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