Former French PM Édouard Balladur dies at 97
Former French prime minister Édouard Balladur has died aged 97, decades after losing a bitter 1995 presidential race to his former ally Jacques Chirac. His family says a private Mass will be held.
Édouard Balladur, who served as prime minister of France, died on Monday at the age of 97, his family told the AFP news agency. He is remembered above all for the bruising rivalry that erupted between him and his longtime friend and political ally Jacques Chirac during the 1995 presidential race.
Known as "Louis XV" for his aloof and aristocratic manner, Balladur had long been groomed by Chirac as a trusted right-hand man. Two years before the 1995 election, however, he decided to run for president himself, a move that deeply wounded Chirac. Several senior figures in the centre-right Rally for the Republic, including future president Nicolas Sarkozy, threw their support behind Balladur at the time, but ultimately backed the wrong candidate: Chirac's warmer, more relatable campaign style won him the presidency.
From Smyrna to the halls of power
Born in 1929 in Smyrna, in what is now Turkey, into a wealthy Catholic family of Armenian descent, Balladur moved to France as a child and later studied at the elite Ecole Nationale d'Administration. He went on to serve as chief of staff to president Georges Pompidou until Pompidou's sudden death in 1974. As finance minister under prime minister Chirac from 1986, Balladur led the privatisation of major state companies and pushed through spending cuts, drawing comparisons to Britain's Margaret Thatcher.
In 1993 he became prime minister under a "cohabitation" government, working alongside Socialist president François Mitterrand. His steady handling of high unemployment and a growing deficit made him widely popular despite the austerity measures he imposed.
Heading into the 1995 presidential race, Balladur led opinion polls for months, but ultimately finished third in the first round, behind Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin and Chirac, who went on to win the runoff. Balladur remained a member of parliament until 2007. In 2017, at age 88, he was charged with channelling kickbacks from arms deals with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia into his failed presidential campaign, though he was later acquitted. He was married and had four sons.
