Former French Prime Minister Édouard Balladur Dies at 97
Al-Taj News – The Agence France-Presse news agency, citing the family of former French Prime Minister Édouard Balladur, reported his death at the age of 97.
Balladur’s family said that a mass would be held “within the closest family circle,” without providing further details about the funeral arrangements.
In a post on X on Monday, current French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu described Édouard Balladur as an “outstanding figure” and “a statesman with a reformist spirit,” adding that he “will remain a role model for many men and women in his political family.”
Édouard Balladur was born in 1929 in the Turkish city of Izmir, and his family moved to France in the 1930s.
Balladur began his political career in 1964 as an adviser to then-Prime Minister Georges Pompidou. After Pompidou was elected president of France in 1969, Balladur became deputy secretary-general of the presidency, then served as its secretary-general until Pompidou’s death in 1974.
In the 1980s, Balladur was an ally of right-wing politician Jacques Chirac and served as finance minister in the government he headed from 1986 to 1988, pursuing liberal economic policies similar to those of Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the United States.
After the center-right coalition won the legislative elections in 1993, Balladur became head of the French government under President François Mitterrand.
In 1995, Balladur ran for the French presidency, but came third in the first round of voting, behind Jacques Chirac and Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin.
Later, Balladur became a member of the French Parliament and chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, from 2002 to 2007.
Balladur supported the development of relations between European countries and Russia, which he visited on an official visit in November 1993. At the time, he spoke of the need to establish a “privileged partnership” with Russia, noting that its place was “inside Europe, not beside it,” and that Russia should have an important place in the European security system.
