2023-04-25 13:16:00
Often behaving as an undisciplined rebel in his own camp, the right, he dreamed of being prime minister and was, for a time, among the presidential candidates. Former minister, former deputy and mayor of Fréjus (Var), François Léotard died on Tuesday April 25, at the age of 81, announced Emmanuel Macron, paying tribute to him in a message published on the social network Twitter.
Born March 26, 1942 in Cannes (Alpes-Maritimes), into a family of seven children – he is the brother of actor Philippe Léotard (1940-2001) –, a Corsican mother and a former monarchist father, who was mayor of Fréjus, he was raised in the cult of Charles Maurras. After secondary studies at the Charlemagne high school in Paris and at the Marcelin-Berthelot high school in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés (Val-de-Marne), François Léotard obtained a degree in public law and graduated from the Institute of Political Studies. from Paris. He militates against the Algerian war in the Unified Socialist Party. Then went on a one-year retreat with the Benedictines of the abbey of Pierre-qui-Vire, and considered entering religious orders. After a cooperation in Lebanon, he became, on June 16, 1968, chancellery secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 1971, François Léotard entered the ENA by internal competition (François Rabelais promotion) and graduated as civil administrator in 1973. He was then sub-prefect in Paris, then in the Dordogne. In 1976, the Minister of the Interior, Michel Poniatowski, took him into his cabinet. The young man, who, in the wake of the election of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, joined the Independent Republicans in 1974, launched himself into politics: he was elected first mayor of Fréjus on March 25, 1977 (and will remain so until August 8, 1997), then deputy of Var in April 1978; re-elected to this post in 1981, 1986, 1988, 1993 (in 1995 he resumed his mandate which he had abandoned to be a minister) and 1997, it will also become general councilor of the Var (1979-1988) and regional councilor of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region (1986-1987 and 1998-2004).
Secretary General in 1982, then President in 1988 of the Republican Party, Vice-President (1983-1996) then President (1996-1998) of the Union for French Democracy (UDF), François Léotard was Minister for the two cohabitations of the seven-year term of François Mitterrand. In 1986, he sought the ministry of defence, but came up against a veto from the president who confided to Jacques Chirac: “ Your friend Léotard would have been damned to declare a war without our realizing it. » He therefore finds himself in culture.
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