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Former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing — a rumored lover of Princess Diana who was dubbed the “French Kennedy” — has died of COVID-19, according to his family.
He was 94.
Known as “VGE,” Giscard was leader from 1974 to 1981 during which he “transformed France,” current President Emmanuel Macron said of his predecessor who legalized both divorce and abortion.
VGE had been in the hospital several times in recent months for heart problems but passed away late Wednesday after getting infected with the coronavirus.
“His state of health had worsened and he died as a consequence of COVID-19,” his family and foundation said, with the ex-president “surrounded by his family” at home in the Loire region.
“In accordance with his wishes, his funeral will take place in strict privacy,” his office said.
Macron said that “his death has plunged the French nation into mourning.”
Born in Germany in the wake of World War I, Giscard d’Estaing helped liberate Paris from the Nazis in the next world war, before becoming France’s 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.
His time in office “succeeded in modernizing political life in France,” former President Nicolas Sarkozy said of the man dubbed the “French Kennedy” for featuring his aristocratic family in his campaigns.
“VGE” also gained notoriety for his private life — especially in 2009 when, at age 83, he published a racy romance novel called “The Princess and the President” — which he admitted was based on Princess Diana but was “pure fiction.”
But the novel’s details about a secret love affair between a French leader and an unhappy British princess long sparked rumors of a true-life dalliance with Lady Di.
“We were talking about love stories between the leaders of major countries and she said to me, ‘Why don’t you write a book about it?’” Giscard d’Estaing told Le Point magazine of a conversation he had with Diana.
Earlier this year, he was also tainted by #MeToo accusations from a German journalist who accused Giscard d’Estaing of repeatedly grabbing her during an interview — filing a sexual assault complaint with Paris prosecutors.
VGE strongly denied the “grotesque” allegations, and his French lawyer said the former president “retains no memory” of the incident.
He had been married since 1952 to Anne-AymoneIt de Brantes, the daughter of a count and heiress to a steel fortune, and they had four children: Valerie-Anne, Louis, Henri and Jacinte.
With Post wires
