Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

POLITICS

‘Creator of our Europe’ – Tributes flood in to French former EU boss Jacques Delors

In Britain he might be best remembered as the subject of the tabloid headline 'Up yours Delors', but across Europe tributes have been pouring in after the death of the French politician widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the creation of the EU.

Published: 28 December 2023 09:58 CET
'Creator of our Europe' - Tributes flood in to French former EU boss Jacques Delors
Jacques Delors, pictured in Paris in 1983. Photo by PHILIPPE BOUCHON / AFP

Jacques Delors, a former head of the EU Commission and key figure in the creation of the euro currency, died in his sleep in his Paris home on Wednesday at the age of 98, his daughter Martine Aubrey reported.

Delors, a Socialist, had a high-profile political career in France, where he served as finance minister under president Francois Mitterrand from 1981 to 1984.

But he declined to run for president in 1995 despite being overwhelmingly ahead in the polls, a decision he put down to “a desire for independence that was too great”.

“I have no regrets,” he said about that decision later. “But I’m not saying I was right.”

He headed up the European Commission from 1985 to 1995, a decade that saw major steps in the bloc’s integration.

These included the completion of the common market, the Schengen accords for travel, the Erasmus programme for student exchanges and the creation of the bloc’s single currency, the euro.

His drive for increased integration met with resistance in some member countries, especially Britain under prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

“Up Yours Delors” read a famous 1990 front-page headline in The Sun newspaper which voiced its concerns about a single currency and increased powers for the European Parliament.

Following the news of his death, tributes have been flooding in from around Europe.

In France

In France itself, tributes were paid from across the political spectrum.

French President Emmanuel Macron called Delors “a tireless creator of our Europe”.

Macron said that “his commitment, his ideal and his rectitude will always inspire us” adding that Delors was “a statesman with a French destiny.”

French Socialist party chief Olivier Faure said that “a giant has left us”. Calling Delors “a child of the century” who had “experienced the worst”. Faure said he had sought to “overcome tragedy by building a durable peace”.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the hard-left La France Insoumise party, said Delors was “a Socialist of a generation that had an ideal, a man of action who always thought of the common good”.

Centrist François Bayrou said that for him “and for an entire generation of my political family and thought, he was a reference like no other”.

Around Europe

European Council President Charles Michel said Delors “led the transformation of the European Economic Community towards a true Union”.

“A great Frenchman and a great European, he went down in history as one of the builders of our Europe,” Michel posted on social media.

Current European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said Delors had “shaped entire generations of Europeans, including mine” and was “a visionary who made our Europe stronger”.

European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde highlighted Delors’s role for the single European market and “the path he laid out towards our single currency, the euro”.

Europe, she said, “has lost a true statesman”.

“Modern Europe today loses its founding father,” said Enrico Letta, a former Italian prime minister who currently heads the Jacques Delors Institute created by the ex-EU commission chief.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani praised “a personality who showed, on the basis of Christian values, the path of strengthening Europe”.

Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo also hailed the EU’s “founding father”, whose “project for a stronger and more secure union remains hugely relevant for the Europe of tomorrow”.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that Delors “always believed in a united, open and prosperous Europe”. “He worked to make what many thought impossible a reality.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hailed Delors as a “visionary” and an “architect of the EU as we know it”.

Delors fought for European unity “like few others”, Scholz added, urging Europeans to continue his work for the continent’s benefit.

And the USA

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described Delors as a “visionary statesman.”

“Delors transformed Europe through tireless service to the idea of a Europe whole and free.”

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

POLITICS

Explained: What’s behind the violence on French island of New Caledonia?

Violent unrest has disrupted daily life on the French Pacific island of New Caledonia - leaving several dead and prompting president Emmanuel Macron to declare a state of emergency. Here's a look at what’s happening, why, and why it matters so much to France.

Published: 15 May 2024 14:45 CEST
Explained: What’s behind the violence on French island of New Caledonia?

Two people have been killed and hundreds more injured, shops were looted and public buildings torched during a second night of rioting in New Caledonia – Nouvelle-Calédonie, in French – as anger over planned constitutional reforms boiled over.

On Wednesday, president Emmanuel Macron declared a state of emergency as the violence continued, with at least one police officer seriously injured.

What began as pro-independence demonstrations have spiralled into three days of the worst violence seen on the French Pacific archipelago since the 1980s. 

Police have arrested more than 130 people since the riots broke out Monday night, with dozens placed in detention to face court hearings, the commission said.

A curfew has been put in place, and armed security forces are patrolling the streets of the capital Noumea.

So, New Caledonia is a French colony?

New Caledonia is, officially, a collectivité d’Outre mer (overseas collective). It’s not one of the five départements d’Outre mer – French Guiana in South America, Martinique and Gaudeloupe in the Caribbean and Réunion and Mayotte in the Indian Ocean – which are officially part of France.

As a collectivité, New Caledonia has special status that was negotiated in 1988 that gives it increasing autonomy over time and more say over its own affairs that the French overseas départements.

Home to about 269,000 people, the archipelago was a penal colony in the 19th century. Today its economy is based mainly on agriculture and vast nickel resources.

What has prompted the riots?

This is about voting rights.

Pro-independence groups believe that constitutional reforms that would give the vote to anyone who has lived on the island for 10 years would dilute the vote held by the indigenous Kanak people – who make up about 41 percent of the population, and the majority of whom favour independence.

New Caledonia’s voter lists have not been updated since 1998 when the Noumea Accord was signed, depriving island residents who arrived from mainland France or elsewhere since of a vote in provincial polls, enlarging the size of the voting population.

Proponents of the reform say that it just updates voting rolls to include long-time residents, opponents believe that it’s an attempt to gerrymander any future votes on independence for the islands.

The Noumea Accord – what’s that?

It was an agreement, signed in 1998, in which France said it would grant increased political power to New Caledonia and its original population, the Kanaks, over a 20-year transition period. 

It was signed on May 5th 1998 by Lionel Jospin, and approved in a referendum in New Caledonia on November 8th, with 72 percent voting in favour.

The landmark deal has led to three referendums. In 2018, 57 percent voted to remain closely linked to France; in October 2020, the vote decreased to 53 percent. In a third referendum in 2021, the people voted against full sovereignty with another narrow margin.

And that’s what the reforms are about?

Yes. The reforms, which have been voted through by MPs in France, but must still be approved by a joint sitting of both houses of the French parliament, would grant the right to vote to anyone who has lived on the island for 10 years or more. 

President Emmanuel Macron has said that lawmakers will vote to definitively adopt the constitutional change by the end of June, unless New Caledonia’s political parties agree on a new text that, “takes into account the progress made and everyone’s aspirations”.

Autonomy has its limits.

How serious is the unrest?

French President Emmanuel Macron urged calm in a letter to the territory’s representatives, calling on them to “unambiguously condemn” the “disgraceful and unacceptable” violence.

New Caledonia pro-independence leader, Daniel Goa, asked people to “go home”, and condemned the looting.

But “the unrest of the last 24 hours reveals the determination of our young people to no longer let France take control of them,” he added.

This isn’t the first time there’s been unrest on the island, is it?

There has been a long history of ethnic tensions on New Caledonia, starting in 1878 when a Kanak insurgency over the rights of Kanaks in the mining industry left 200 Europeans and 600 rebels dead. Some 1,500 Kanaks were sent into exile.

Clashes between Kanaks and Caldoches in the 1980s culminated in a bloody attack and hostage-taking by Kanak separatists in 1988, when six police officers and 19 militants were killed on the island of Ouvea.

SHOW COMMENTS