PRES. MACRON &WIFE BRIGITTE PAY TRIBUTE TO JACQUES DELORS WHO DIED AT 98

USPA NEWS - “My life only has meaning if I am useful,” , this is what Jacques Delors, stated, few decades ago, and who presided the European Commission, in 1985.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte published a communique, as a presidential tribute to Jacques Delors who passed away last 27December 2023, at 98 years old.. We publish the entire Presidential Statement, as it was delivered by Elysee, French Presidency.

STATEMENT BY PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON & 1ST LADY BRIGITTE / ELYSEE FRENCH PRESIDENCY
“With the death of Jacques Delors, 27 December 2023, Europe loses a tireless artisan, and France a tutelary figure on the political scene for forty years.

His political vocation was born between the spectacle of the parliamentary swell of Paris between the wars and the rocky landscapes of the Massif Central, where his peasant grandparents lived, and where the exodus pushed his family for a few years . In this region as fertile in great people as in lush pastures, he drew a pragmatism anchored in the earth, a morality of work and respect for the value of each object, a feeling of duty and justice, steeped in Christian convictions. who did not leave him.

After his studies in law and political economy, from the start of his career at the Banque de France, his sense of collective responsibility pushed him to get involved in trade unionism. Active within the ancestor of the CFDT, he influenced it towards more democratic socialism and worked to deconfessionalize it. There he acquired an art of negotiation and mediation which worked wonders from his beginnings in the socialist party.

Close to Prime Minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas, he contributed to his project for a “new society”. From 1969 to 1974, he was general secretary to the Prime Minister for professional training and social promotion, notably drawing up progress contracts, and inspiring the 1971 law on continuing professional training.

Faithful companion of François Mitterrand in his conquest of the Élysée, he worked alongside him as Minister of the Economy, Finance and Budget from 1981 to 1984. Rigor and recovery, such were the watchwords of his financial policy of rupture, marked by the fight against inflation and for monetary balance.

His life remains inseparable from the European epic. Building on his first experience as a Member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1981, during which he presided over the Community's financial affairs, Jacques Delors, then mayor of Clichy-la Garenne, was appointed President of the European Commission in 1985. During his long mandate ten years, Delors breathed life into the European clay, from the Schengen agreements to those of Maastricht, from the integration of Spain and Portugal to the reception of the East Germans when the curtain of iron. He worked tirelessly for unification, establishing the free movement of capital, goods and people, reforming the common agricultural policy, combating reluctance and reluctance to give birth to the Euro, driven by a humanist vision of freedom and of exchange beyond national particularities.

This grandson of farmers and son of a bank employee, who owed his rise only to his talent, never let the dizziness of heights corrupt his human rectitude.

Favored by the polls in the French presidential election of 1995, he refused to run for a role that he did not feel capable of fully investing in, due to a lack of sufficient political support for his reform projects. The only quality he recognized in his modesty was that of a teacher. The former management professor at Dauphine remained passionate about the issues of transmission and education, and he was one of the instigators of the Erasmus project.

“My life only has meaning if I am useful,” he said. Faced with the dysfunctions of the established order, faced with injustices on all sides, faced with addiction and self-satisfaction, he always wanted to remain a rebel. His principle was clear: never be satisfied with what he had already accomplished. The years have in no way weakened this resolution: Jacques Delors was still working at the age of ninety within the institute for reflection on European unity which he founded and which bears his name.

The President of the Republic and his wife salute the work of an architect of France and modern Europe who combined the three colors and the twelve stars, and share the sadness of his family and those around him, to whom they address their sincere condolences. His legacy, more alive than ever, invites us to follow in his footsteps, towards a sovereign and fraternal Europe, resolutely turned towards the future." Source: Elysee, French Presidency