He was a Resistance hero, a bold political reformer and a lover of the British – including, if rumours are true, one iconic woman in particular.
France’s former president Valery Giscard d’Estaing, who has died at 94 as a result of Covid-19, was claimed to have had a fling with Princess Diana.
Giscard’s novel in 2009 – The Princess and the President – was about a secret affair between a French leader and an unhappy British princess who resembled Diana, and was the Princess of Cardiff.
It fuelled rumours the pair once had a romance. Giscard liberalised laws on divorce, abortion and contraception in his time in power from 1974 to 1981.
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