In 2024, 50 years after his death, the former head of state, his record, his personality, his culture, are unanimous. In the region as elsewhere.
From Georges Pompidou, it may have seemed that he was the forgotten president of the Fifth Republic.
Without going back to General de Gaulle, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, beyond their awards, remain personalities most often respected, regretted, and still benefit from a real aura in their camp.
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing entered history with the image of the man who allowed the country to embrace the turn towards modernity, with major social reforms, from the age of majority to 18 to the legalization of abortion We do not mention his successors: for lack of perspective, History has not yet decided the quality of his posterity.
Attacked at Cajarc, in the Lot
There remains Georges Pompidou, of whom little attention has been paid for a long time, apart from evoking here his good nature, there his culture. So far. The occurrence of the 50th anniversary of his death, on April 2, 1974, at the age of 62, allows a reassessment of his six years at Matignon and his four years at the Élysée, before that the disease brought him, and the birth of a feeling between melancholy and regret. And the adopted Lotois (he was very attached to Cajarc, where he had a second home), to meet everywhere.
As the subject of a documentary (The cruelty of power) on France 3 (available on France.tv), a book by David Lisnard and Christophe Tardieu (Lessons from PompidouThe Observatory), an official conference (on April 10, at the National Assembly, under the patronage of its president), among other events dedicated to her.
“Deep roots and very advanced modernity”
Sometimes by personalities not born in the year of his death. Like Aurélien Pradié, 38 years old, deputy of Lot, and leader of the regional right in Occitania. He had dedicated a chapter to it Hang on (2023, Bouquins), and illustrated his 2024 greeting card with a photo of Pompidou.
Aurélien Pradié is not surprised by the renewed popularity of the Auvergnat: “His attachment to the country was embodied by deep roots and very advanced modernity. He had been forgotten, today, everyone does business there. Sometimes in the wrong way. A round man? On the contrary, he was very rigid on some subjects! Liberal? Why did he say that we need to stop arresting the French? Above all, he said that globalization would be our opportunity, but also our downfall.”.
Some idea of the country
But with this work of memory around the Pompidolian figure and gesture, isn’t it also about enhancing the nostalgia of an era, of a certain idea of the country? A France at the end of the Thirties Glorious Years and full employment, an industrial golden age before the oil crises, growth never below 5%, of Sautet films where you drink, smoke, love , and fight in crowded brasseries, Bébel, Delon, De Funès, Annie Girardot and Marlène Jobert superstars, France and Concorde?
“When Pompidou mentioned Eluard…”
Aurélien Pradié agrees. The nuances: “We don’t want to rewrite history, but this nostalgia shows that politics could also make the French happy, allow them to take on great challenges. And the political discourse has also allowed citizens to rise up. Today, too often, the political discourse it looks like the PMU bar remarks that some Fates make to try to make people popular. When Pompidou, in a press conference, mentioned Eluard, it was a way of saying that he did not take the French for idiots.