France bid farewell to former prime minister Lionel Jospin on Thursday, with President Emmanuel Macron leading a national tribute to the influential left‑wing statesman credited with major welfare reforms.
Jospin, who introduced the 35-hour work week and civil partnerships for gay couples when he was head of government from 1997 to 2002, died on Sunday aged 88.
The ceremony took place at the historic Les Invalides national monument, the resting place of Napoleon Bonaparte, in the presence of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, top politicians, and other high-profile guests.
Jospin’s widow, the philosopher Sylviane Agacinsky, was also in attendance.
Members of the Republican Guard carried the casket draped in a French flag into the courtyard to the beat of a drum before Macron read a eulogy, saying Jospin fought for justice and freedom.
“He helped bring France into the new century,” Macron said.
“Lionel Jospin modernised the nation’s economic, social and democratic life in an unprecedented manner.”
Afterwards the Republican Guard Band performed a post‑war French classic, “Les Feuilles Mortes” (“The Dead Leaves”), which Jospin himself had sung on television in 1984.
Jospin was to be buried at the Montparnasse cemetery in the south of Paris. Several thousand people were expected to attend the funeral, which is open to the public.
Romantic comedy cameo
A unifying figure on the left, Jospin led a coalition government of socialists, Greens and communists in a cohabitation arrangement with centre-right President Jacques Chirac.
As prime minister, he charted a pragmatic economic course and sought to stamp out corruption. He brought down unemployment and revived growth, but it was his social reforms that defined his tenure.
Apart from chopping four hours off the working week, he extended free healthcare and introduced civil unions, laying the ground for a gay marriage bill that was adopted over a decade later, despite mass protests.
Jospin ran for president in 2002, but was eliminated in the first round after finishing behind Chirac and far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, in one of the biggest political upsets in post-war France.
Jospin announced he would leave politics on that same night.
In later years, he made a cameo appearance playing himself during the 2002 elections in the romantic comedy “Le Nom des gens” (“The Names of Love”).
The film, released in 2010, tells the story of a young left-wing activist who sleeps with people in an effort to try to convert them to her political views.
The film’s director Michel Leclerc said in 2010 that Jospin had written his own lines and did not want to be paid.
Jospin era ‘now over’
Jospin’s death drew fresh attention to the divisions tearing apart France’s left-wing politicians, as the country prepares to elect a successor to Macron, who is constitutionally barred from running again.
In an editorial, the French daily Le Monde said the country’s modern-day left-wingers appeared to have forgotten the lessons of the Jospin era.
His broad leftist coalition government “lasted five years and brought about significant reforms,” Le Monde said. “That era is now over.”
With the far-right eyeing the Élysée, “ideas are being relegated to the background, with everyone preferring to hurl invectives at one another or claim moral high ground.”
Additional sources • AFP