Former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur died Monday in Paris at the age of 97, his family announced to AFP. “A mass will be given in strict family privacy,” the same source added, without further details.
Edouard Balladur was the last Prime Minister of François Mitterrand, from March 1993 to May 1995. He will go down in political history as the “friend of thirty years” of Jacques Chirac, who became his rival during the fierce presidential campaign of 1995 which put an end to his ambitions.
“He was a statesman, with a reforming spirit and will remain a reference for many men and women in his political family,” Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu reacted on X.
“Seeking to convince and never to seduce, he was one of those politicians who have a high opinion of voters because they have a noble idea of France,” greeted the boss of LR Bruno Retailleau.
Under Pompidou and Chirac
Entering the cabinet of Georges Pompidou at the age of 35, then Prime Minister under General de Gaulle, Edouard Balladur participated in 1968 alongside Jacques Chirac in the Grenelle agreements.
He followed his mentor to the Élysée as deputy secretary general then secretary general of the presidency. Then Jacques Chirac, who became president of the RPR, came to seek him out and bring him back to politics in the 1980s.
In 1988, François Mitterrand was re-elected for his second term and the right lost the legislative elections. She had her revenge five years later in the 1993 legislative elections, forcing the socialist president into a new cohabitation. Leader of the right, Jacques Chirac has no desire to return to Matignon and lets Édouard Balladur settle there.
The latter becomes a popular Prime Minister. With the support of a majority of public opinion and the Pasqua clan (including Nicolas Sarkozy, young Budget Minister), he declared himself a presidential candidate in January 1995.
Fratricidal battle
Long in the lead in the first round, he saw his lead disappear over the weeks and Jacques Chirac was finally elected in the second round against the socialist Lionel Jospin. This failure will sound the death knell for its national ambitions and this fratricidal battle between the two “thirty-year-old” friends – Chirac’s expression – will permanently divide the right.
Retired from political life, Edouard Balladur was subsequently implicated for suspicion of secret financing of his presidential campaign, thanks to kickbacks on arms contracts with Pakistan. He was acquitted by the Court of Justice of the Republic in 2021, but not his former Minister of Defense François Léotard, now deceased, who was sentenced to two suspended prison sentences.
