Giscard became last century’s youngest president at 48 in 1974, beating his Socialist rival Francois Mitterrand, to whom he then lost after his seven-year term in 1981 in a failed re-election bid. 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.
