PARIS: France on Thursday bid farewell to former prime minister Lionel Jospin, with President Emmanuel Macron leading a national tribute to the influential left?wing statesman credited with major welfare reforms.<\/p>\n
Jospin, who introduced the 35-hour work week when he was head of government from 1997 to 2002, died on Sunday aged 88.<\/p>\n
The ceremony took place at the historic Les Invalides national monument, the resting place of Napoleon Bonaparte, in the presence of Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, top left-wing politicians, and other high-profile guests.<\/p>\n
Jospin\u2019s widow, the philosopher Sylviane Agacinsky, 80, was in attendance.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe helped bring France into the new century,\u201d Macron said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLionel Jospin modernized the nation\u2019s economic, social and democratic life in an unprecedented manner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Afterwards the Republican Guard Band performed a post?war French classic, \u201cLes Feuilles Mortes\u201d (\u201cThe Dead Leaves\u201c), which Jospin himself had sung on television in 1984.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
– Romantic comedy cameo –<\/p>\n
A unifying figure on the left, Jospin led a coalition government of Socialists, Greens and Communists in a cohabitation arrangement with center-right President Jacques Chirac.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Apart from chopping four hours off the working week, he extended free health care and introduced civil unions, laying the ground for a same sex marriage bill that was adopted over a decade later, despite mass protests.<\/p>\n
Jospin ran for president in 2002, but was eliminated in the first round after finishing behind Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen, the father of current far-right presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen, in one of the biggest political upsets in post-war France.<\/p>\n
Jospin announced he would leave politics.<\/p>\n
In later years, he made a cameo appearance playing himself during the 2002 elections in romantic comedy \u201cLe Nom des gens\u201d (\u201cThe Names of Love\u201c).<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The film\u2019s director Michel Leclerc told AFP in 2010 Jospin had written his own lines and did not want to be paid.<\/p>\n
– \u2018Era now over\u2019 –<\/p>\n
Jospin\u2019s death drew fresh attention to the divisions tearing apart France\u2019s leftwing politicians, as the country prepares to elect a successor to Macron, who is constitutionally barred from running again.<\/p>\n
In an editorial, French daily Le Monde said the country\u2019s modern-day left-wingers appeared to forget the lessons of the Jospin era.<\/p>\n
His broad leftist coalition government \u201clasted five years and brought about significant reforms,\u201d Le Monde said. \u201cThat era is now over.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the far right eyeing the Elysee, \u201cideas are being relegated to the background, with everyone preferring to hurl invectives at one another or claim moral high ground.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS: France on Thursday bid farewell to former prime minister Lionel Jospin, 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 when he was head of government from 1997 to 2002, died on Sunday aged 88. The ceremony took …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":95497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95498,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95485\/revisions\/95498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}