At Les Républicains, everybody has their nostalgia for Georges Pompidou | EUROtoday

“Nostalgia isn’t bad, isn’t it? » Born in 1985, François-Xavier Bellamy is a child of the François Mitterrand years whose face lights up at the mention of the name of Georges Pompidou (1911-1974). Head of the Les Républicains (LR) list for the European elections of June 9, the philosophy lecturer participates, like others on the right, in the commemorative eulogy around the only president of the V^e Republic died in office on April 2, 1974. “I find it striking to say that France was presided over by a professor of literature”, he continues. When he has to come back together with his bedside guide “Daily” on TMCon March 16, the candidate took with him his dog-eared copy ofAnthology of French poetry by Georges Pompidou (Hachette, 1961) provided by his grandfather.

Beyond his data of poetry, the person with Winston all the time on his lips embodies a bygone period. French progress exceeds 5% per yr, there may be nonetheless smoking on the Elysée and a president can get there in a (used) Porsche. The Pompidou years (1969-1974) could be these of pleased days barely disrupted by the primary oil shock of 1973. “A golden age with a president who reforms and modernizes the country without offending it”praises Olivier Marleix, head of the LR group within the National Assembly.

On the fitting, General de Gaulle has lengthy left little room for his successor, crushed in recollections by the person of the June 18 attraction. But in 2024, Pompidou is the development of the second at LR. From the conservatives François-Xavier Bellamy and Bruno Retailleau to the liberal David Lisnard, together with Aurélien Pradié, a claimed inheritor of the social proper, all of them take the previous Cantal deputy for instance.

“My father was elected in his constituency a few years later, which gives me an advantage over otherssmiled Mr. Marleix before becoming more serious. Pompidou reconciles everyone on the right, the liberals, the statists, because on the one hand he fights bureaucracy, he doesn't want us to piss off the French, and on the other he has organized the strategist State with major projects like Airbus, Ariane or nuclear power launched when he was at the Elysée or previously prime minister. »

“There is something very French about him”

At the National Assembly, his framed classic photograph has turn out to be a must have within the places of work of LR elected officers. When he was nonetheless main the celebration, the now president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes area, Laurent Wauquiez, had displayed a replica of the Gordian knotMr. Pompidou's guide of political reflections printed after his dying.

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