Former European Commission president, the “father” of the euro and a figure of the French left, Jacques Delors, died today at the age of 98, his daughter, Martine Aubrey, told the French Press Agency.
«He died in his sleep this morning (Wednesday) at his home in Paris,» said Martine Aubrey, mayor of the city of Lille.
Having served as finance minister under François Mitterrand (1981-1984), Delors dashed the hopes of the left by refusing to run in the 1995 French presidential elections, while appearing as the heavy favourite in the polls.
«I don't regret anything», but «I'm not saying I did the right thing», he told Le Point magazine in 2021. «I wanted to be independent and I felt different from those around me. My way of doing politics was not the same,» he had said.
A staunch supporter of post-war European integration, Delors served as President of the European Commission for three terms - more than any other incumbent - from January 1985 to the end of 1994.
In Brussels, Delors played the role of architect in shaping the contours of modern Europe: the establishment of the single market, the signing of the Schengen agreements, the Single European Act, the creation of the Erasmus student exchange programme, the reform of the common agricultural policy, the launch of Economic and Monetary Union leading to the creation of the euro.
In March 2020, he had again called on EU heads of state and government to show more solidarity at a time when they were struggling for a common response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
With his think tanks, he called for the strengthening of European federalism to the end, demanding more «boldness» in the era of Brexit and attacks by «populists of all kinds».
