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Edouard Balladur Biography

Édouard Balladur

(Smyrna, 1929) French politician.Born in Smyrna into a family of bankers of Armenian origin, Édouard Balladur studied law at the University of Aix-en-Provence and graduated from the Institute of Political Studies in Paris.

His political career began in the early 1960s.Technical adviser in Pompidou's cabinet from 1966 to 1968, the Prime Minister entrusted him with relations with the unions.Between 1969 and 1974 he was Secretary General to President Pompidou.Considered the shadow mastermind of that government, Balladur served as de facto president during Pompidou's long agony.

After his death, he rejected the post of ambassador to the Vatican proposed by Valery Giscard d'Estaing and went on to work for a private company.In 1977 he was appointed president-director of General de Servicios Informáticos and in 1980, president of the European Accumulator Company.In 1984 he was appointed Councilor of State, and in the legislative elections of March 16, 1986 he was elected deputy for the Paris constituency.

Prime Minister Jacques Chirac appointed him Minister of Economy, Finance and Privatizations, a position he held until 1988.From this portfolio he led the privatization policy with an iron fist and even went so far as to abolish the tax on large fortunes.After Chirac's defeat in the 1988 presidential elections, Balladur moved away from the front line of politics.On June 5, 1988, he was re-elected deputy of the National Assembly for the Paris constituency and shortly afterwards he opened the Center for Popular Liberalism, a place for discussion and political meetings.

Member of the party leadership neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR), led by Jacques Chirac, renewed his seat as deputy in the March 1993 elections, in which the RPR was the most voted formation.On March 29, 1993 he was appointed by François Mitterrand Prime Minister of the French government, replacing Pierre Beregovoy.On January 18, 1995, he officially announced his candidacy for the presidential elections of April 23 and May 7.

Although the news had the support of a large part of the electorate and his party, the shadow of corruption obscured his intact image.In fact, during 1994 he had to face four scandals that, the following year, weighed too much on his credibility in the presidential race.The Carignon affair cost Alain Garignon the post of Communication Minister and Mayor of Grenoble in June, after it was confirmed that he granted the works of water distribution in this city to a company in exchange for irregular financing to the city council.The Longuet affair resulted in the resignation on October 14 of Industry Minister Gerard Longuet after being involved in irregular funding of the Republican Party.In November, the Roussin affair led to the downfall of the Minister of Cooperation, Michel Roussin, immersed in a case of illegal financing of the RPR.

The Marechal affair was an extension of the previous one.Dr.Pierre Marechal tried to extort money from Didier Schuller, a RPR counselor and accused in the Roussin investigation, in exchange for influencing his son-in-law, Judge Eric Halphen, one of the investigators in the investigation.But Balladur's true ordeal began at the end of February 1995, when a series of actions by the Minister of the Interior, Charles Pasqua, until then a champion of his campaign, further tarnished his image.On Sunday, April 23, 1995, he was eliminated in the first round of the presidential elections by finishing third in the consultation, with 18.59 percent of the vote.After acknowledging his defeat that same day, he requested the full support of the electorate for his friend Chirac, who would dispute with Jospin the succession of Mitterrand on May 7 the following.

On May 10, 1995 he presented his resignation to the still President François Mitterrand.Balladur's resignation had been taken for granted after Chirac's victory in the May 7 elections.Temporarily away from active politics, in September he reappeared, attending the partial legislative elections on the 17th and 24th for the XV district of Paris.Although in the first In the second round, he did not obtain a sufficient majority due to the dispersion of the vote, in the second he collected the necessary votes to win the seat in the National Assembly.

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