Marie-France Garaud, advisor to Georges Pompidou and Jacques Chirac, died Wednesday May 22 at the age of 90 at her home in Saint-Pompain in Deux-Sèvres, her son announced yesterday.
A figure of the conservative right, Marie-France Garaud appeared as the gray eminence of Georges Pompidou, alongside another influential advisor, Pierre Juillet. When Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, elected to the Élysée, appointed Jacques Chirac to Matignon, it was with this young Prime Minister that the duo worked, pushing him in particular to run, successfully, for mayor of Paris in 1977 or to launch the “Cochin appeal” on Europe a year later, on a conservative and sovereignist line.
Mr. Chirac, however, distanced himself a few months later from this essential advisor, who then stood against him during the 1981 presidential election (1.33%). “She exerted a form of fascination through her authority and this halo of gray eminence. She had what many political leaders no longer have, a strong character, not always easy, and a backbone., paid tribute to Henri Guaino, former advisor to Nicolas Sarkozy at the Élysée. Marie-France Garaud was elected MEP in 1999 on the list led by Philippe de Villiers and Charles Pasqua.
