PARIS -- Now 78, former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing managed at the end of last year to achieve two major successes: He was elected to the Academie Francaise, which for more than three centuries has been France's most prestigious intellectual institution; and the Convention of the Future of the European Union, which he chaired, reached agreement on an EU draft constitution. This document is designed to increase the powers of various EU institutions and raise the number of matters that require a qualified majority vote. It also mandates the appointment of an EU president and foreign minister.
In the absence of d'Estaing's skill and personal authority, such an outcome would have been extremely unlikely. His success in these endeavors more than made up for his defeat against socialist Francois Mitterrand in the 1981 presidential election.
Unfortunately, 2004 looks less promising for him. Nobody dares to bet on the chances of the proposed EU constitution becoming a reality. For sure, the situation was much worse a month ago, before the train bombings in Madrid, which triggered the unexpected electoral defeat of conservative Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.