Paris– Lionel Jospin, former Prime Minister of France, who gave France its due 35 hour work week And then withdrew from politics after leading France’s Socialist Party to a shocking presidential election defeat against the far-right firebrand Jean-Marie Le PenIs dead. He was 88 years old.
His death was confirmed by the current prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, after the national news agency, Agence France-Presse, reported that Jospin died on Sunday, citing his family.
Lecornu said in a post on
White curly hair and thick-rimmed glasses gave Jospin the image of an economics professor before he was unexpectedly named head of the Socialist Party by newly elected President François Mitterrand in 1981.
Clean of corruption charges, Jospin re-established credibility for the Socialists after their collapse due to bribery and fraud scandals in the 1993 parliamentary elections.
He became Prime Minister in 1997, holding the post until 2002, and led a broadly left-wing government under the French conservative President. Jacques Chirac In a power-sharing arrangement called “cohabitation.”
As Prime Minister, Jospin opposed the shift to the French left towards the free-market reforms adopted at the same time in Britain.
He enacted France’s equality law, required political parties to field an equal number of male and female candidates in national elections, established civil unions for LGBTQ+ and straight couples and reduced the working week from 39 hours to 35 hours, hailed by supporters as a social breakthrough but criticized by opponents as a drag on the economy.
Jospin never embraced her role as a public figure, hampered by a reserved personality that became even harsher in front of the cameras.
She left politics in 2002 after a shock defeat by Le Pen in the first round of presidential voting.
The polarizing Le Pen qualified for a second-round runoff against incumbent and first-round winner Chirac, pushing Jospin into third place. Le Pen and Jospin both received more than 16% of the vote, but Le Pen’s lead of about 200,000 votes over Jospin advanced her to the second round, a victory for the anti-immigration founder of the far-right National Front and a major blow to Le Pen’s opponents.
Voters determined to keep Le Pen out of the presidential Elysee Palace rallied around Chirac, who won a second term in a landslide.
Jospin was born on July 12, 1937, the son of a midwife who, according to family knowledge, used Voltaire’s work to elevate her pelvis during childbirth.
“He believed I had the spirit of Voltaire,” he said.
Jospin said that his childhood memories of Nazi-occupied Paris influenced his outlook in adulthood.
He said, “I remember the importance of silence. If you were not quiet, you risked putting people in danger. Certainly in political life I have retained a certain terror of talkativeness.”
He grew up in a Protestant family and attended the prestigious École d’Administration Nationale, the former institution for the disproportionate share of French leaders and intellectuals.
Like many people in Paris and beyond, he was caught up in the leftist protests of 1968. Before joining the Socialist Party he was close to the Trotskyists.
Despite softening over time, Jospin never lost his concern for the free market, retaining his trademark phrase: “Yes to a market economy, no to a market society.”
