Roland Dumas, former foreign minister of socialist president François Mitterrand and a leading figure in the Paris bar, died on Wednesday at the age of 101, according to his entourage. Mr. Dumas also chaired the Constitutional Council between 1995 and 2000.
A loyal follower of François Mitterrand, his personality as a shrewd negotiator, aesthete and seducer had seen him through the second half of the 20th century both in the courts and under the gilded ceilings of the Republic.
An exceptional career, however, tarnished by the Elf scandal – he was suspected of having facilitated the hiring of one of his mistresses in companies of the oil group for cheap salaries – which forced him to resign from the presidency of the Constitutional Council.
“He left his mark on the history of the Fifth Republic,” said the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, while Jacques Attali, former special advisor to François Mitterrand at the Elysée, recalled that “after seeing his father shot by the Nazis, (Roland Dumas) was a major player in Franco-German relations.”
“He was a character from a novel. As a lawyer, he was talent and humility: when you met him, you learned something,” lawyer Marcel Ceccaldi, a courtroom companion of Mr. Dumas, notably in the defense of the former Ivorian leader Laurent Gbagbo, told AFP.
2024-07-03 15:08:00
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