Talk:Valéry Giscard d'Estaing

Noble?
This article has a major gap. It does not mention anything from his education until he was elected president. Academic Challenger 03:06, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I do not like him.
 * I like him
 * How is he a nobleman? - unsigned.

He's not a nobleman. If you are asking why his surname is Giscard d'Estaing rather than Giscard: His father Edmond Giscard (and his uncle René) had their surname changed, by decree of 17 June 1922, from “Giscard” to “Giscard d’Estaing”. “D’Estaing” was an ancestral line that had become extinct on the revolutionary scaffold in 1794 in the person of admiral Jean-Baptiste d’Estaing, hero of the American War of Independence. (His last words were “Sell my head to the English, they’ll pay a good price for it”.). - Nunh-huh 09:24, 25 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Hello ! The name Giscard d'Estaing is not nobility. Look : [] IP 164 02/08/05


 * He's nobleman but not aristocrat

May 15 2008: This discussion is absurd, since there is no clear definition of what it is to be noble or to be aristocrat - today. However it is clear, that Giscard is not a d'Estaing from the point of view of pre-revolutionary nobleness, since the title and the properties and so on were transferred only to the male descendants. If one, however applies the democratic right to take your mothers name, then we are all nobles or - rather - we could all be noble if we searched far enough in our past. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.50.196.39 (talk) 14:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I wrote the lines above two years ago, but now I know better. 1. France has not abolished the titles of nobleness, but only their privileges. 2. The name Giscard d'Estaing is not a recognized name of nobleness. When the family was authorized to carry the name it was under the condition, that they should not claim to be the duke of Estaing or anything like that. However the father of Valery forgot that, and claimed, in a book he wrote - La maison d' Estaing -, to be the head of the d'Estaing family.--82.125.63.127 (talk) 14:50, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Why no Presidential run in 1995?
Years ago before the 1995 presidential election I heard on the news that Giscard was seriously considering to run for the presidency again in 1995. Yet Giscard ended up not being a candidate at that election at all. So what made him decide not to run in 1995.--The Shadow Treasurer 03:54, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Probably that it would have cost a lot money to loose... Ericd 21:29, 19 February 2006 (UTC)


 * He was not candidate in 1995 because the most part of the UDF politicians supported Edouard Balladur. This one was a popular Prime Minister and, even if he came from the RPR, the majority of his ministers were UDF elects. At this moment, the UDF was not a party but a confederation of parties. The two main components were the Christian Democratic CDS and the Liberal Conservative PR. The CDS leader, François Bayrou, was Education Minister of Balladur and the PR leader, François Léotard was the Defense Minister of Balladur. Without troop behind him he could not win and he did not want another presidential defeat (after his 1981 crash). He took revenge on Balladur in supporting his old ennemy, Jacques Chirac.

N.a french 08:46, 24 September 2007 (UTC) b — Preceding unsigned comment added by 181.130.68.48 (talk) 20:01, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation
Could someone who knows French please add an IPA pronunciation of this name? --Grouse 13:01, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I second that notion. 12.149.39.84 12:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Punctuation and grammar

 * However, the economic downturn that followed the 1973 energy crisis, marking the end of the "thirty glorious years" after World War II, combined the official discourse that the "end the tunnel was near", while the presidency was facing opposition on both sides with the unification of the left by François Mitterrand and the rise of up-and-comer Jacques Chirac who resurrected Gaullism on a right-wing opposition line, and bad public relations caused his unpopularity to grow at the end of his term, and he failed to secure re-election in 1981.

That has to be one of the longest sentences I have ever read... It's unacceptably POV (at least without sources), too. DWaterson 23:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Farewell of VGE to the nation in May 1981
I added a link of national TV archiv institute (INA) about his farewell to the nation. Even if this declaration is considered as pathetical (or as a bit ridiculous), it shows that VGE was sure to come back and wanted to watch to the french the hole his departure will provoke. It reveals a part of his personality.
 * Before considering him as a lunatic, please keep in mind that at that time a lot of people, including current president Jacques Chirac, thought that what they called the Socialist experience would be short lived. Hektor 10:41, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Arms
Picture and blazon should be included if uncopyrighted image can be found or produced. --Daniel C. Boyer 18:49, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Knight of Malta?
Can we have more citations/references for the Knight/Order of Malta assertion? Are there any newspaper pieces that can be found for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.170.24.149 (talk) 18:48, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Irish Treaty referendum
Giscard was quoted by the No side in the debate around the referendum to adopt the Lisbon Treaty on Irish radio today. This prompted me to check the original source of this quote. It is from an article that Giscard wrote for Le Monde which appeared in the edition dated 15 June 2007 entitled "Le Traité simplifié, oui, mutilé, non". You need a paid subscription to read this article online but I will quote the relevant two paragraphs:

"Une dernière trouvaille consiste à vouloir conserver une partie des innovations du Traité constitutionnel, et à les camoufler en les faisant éclater en plusieurs textes. Les dispositions les plus innovantes feraient l'objet de simples amendements aux traités de Maastricht et de Nice. Les améliorations techniques seraient regroupées dans un Traité devenu incolore et indolore. L'ensemble de ces textes serait adressé aux Parlements, qui se prononceraient par des votes séparés. Ainsi l'opinion publique serait-elle à adopter, sans le savoir, les dispositions que l'on n'ose pas lui présenter "en direct".

Cette démarche de "diviser pour ratifier" n'est évidemment pas à la hauteur de l'enjeu. Elle est peut-être un bon exercice de présentation. Mais elle confortera les citoyens européens dans l'idée que la construction européenne est une machinerie organisée dans leur dos par des juristes et des diplomates."

Translation: The latest brainwave is to keep some of the innovations from the constitutional treaty and to camouflage them by releasing them in several different texts. The most innovative measures would become simple amendments to the Maastricht and Nice Treaties. The technical improvements would be put together in a colourless and unremarkable (the word he uses means "without smell") treaty. These texts would be presented to parliament which would vote on each one separately. In this way public opinion could be led to adopt, without realising it, the measures that we do not dare present to them "directly".

This approach of "divide and ratify" is clearly unacceptable. Perhaps it is a good exercise in presentation. But it would confirm to European citizens the notion that European construction is a procedure organised behind their backs by lawyers and diplomats." Geraldkelly (talk) 20:32, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The link to the article in question is available without being a subscriber. I entered that link in the text. The date of the article in Le Monde was not the 15th, but the 14th.Edmond V.O. Katusz (talk) 21:39, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It was a horrible distortion of what he said and, of course, it cropped up later in the UK's 2016 Brexit referendum. I've been editing that section of the article: hopefully duly sourced and accurate. On the offchance those edits don't survive, here are some relevant links. Moscow Mule (talk) 20:21, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Original Le Monde article
 * Irish Times translation
 * 'Distortion' of Giscard quote on Lisbon (Irish Times)
 * No campaign was 'dishonest' in misusing his quote, says Giscard (Irish Times)
 * Giscard was outrageously misquoted
 * BBC News perpetuates the distortion

Freemasonry?
In ZENIT, a highly respected Catholic magazine, it says that he is a freemason. And also a search on Google Books returns many results regarding this. I think we should mention it somewhere in the article, but I'm not sure where abouts. - Yorkshirian (talk) 20:27, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Billboard ban
I do not know to what extent this belongs in the article, but, in 1964 VGE enacted legislation to restrict billboards along roadways. This forced Jean-Claude Decaux out of the billboard business; and because of that, that same year, Decaux founded one of the most successful advertising companies ever to exist, JCDecaux. So it's kind of interesting but does it belong here? I don't have a very reliable looking source -- here is what I have. http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/59/JCDecaux-S-A.html Dranorter (talk) 13:53, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

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Need something better than IPA
I know IPA has a lot of supporters on here, but to most people those symbols are gibberish, and they have a better chance of interpreting the French phonetics. Can someone put in a rough rendering of how to say this in English phonetics, please, not just IPA hieroglyphics. 2A01:4C8:1407:621F:991:E8F3:C190:D084 (talk) 12:35, 25 January 2022 (UTC)