He launched his political career in 1959, becoming finance minister in 1969. After his defeat in 1981 – which he said left him with “frustration at a job unfinished” – he remained active in centrist politics, first regaining a seat in the French parliament and then serving in the European Parliament.
Respect.’ In the last four decades of his life, even though he was busy in some relatively ceremonial government positions, he was mostly present in “memories,” and this caused a kind of depression in him. During the 14 years of Mitterrand’s presidency and almost all of Chirac’s presidency, Valéry Giscard D’Estaing was considered “the only living former president of France” and participated in television programs with the same title and made comments or expressed memories.
