Office of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing at Elysée, marker of change in continuity

When he entered the Elysée, in May 1974, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing upsets the icons. There is no question of setting up in the golden show where his two predecessors officiated, Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou. At the old room of Empress Eugenie, he prefers the piece known as the corner office, as Emmanuel Macron will do after him. Above all, he rejects the sacro-saint Louis XV style office produced in 1740 by Charles Cressant .

Loïc Lusnia

This cabinet of cabinetmaker has become an institution the day when the founder of the V e republic adopted it. Georges Pompidou has respected there and all the other presidents will follow the tradition, apart from François Mitterrand during his second seven -year term. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing does not want it. The Gaullist anointing, the newcomer has nothing to do. He chooses continuity, but of his. The affairs of the country will be conducted since Louis XVI style office he already used at the Ministry of Finance then installed at the Louvre Palace.

This piece is not the most sumptuous realization of Jean-Henri Riesener, a large cabinetmaker supplier of the royal family, in particular Marie-Antoinette. A bronze decor, six drawers and a side tablet; No double background or secret opening. From less imposing dimensions than those of the famous cress, the new center of the presidential power entered the collection of the State after having undoubtedly been seized under the Revolution. An oral tradition in fact the office on which the decree of devaluation of the franc was signed in June 1926 by Raymond Poincaré, who then accumulated the functions of chairman of the Council and Minister of Finance. VGE is not superstitious.

DEVELIZE OF PERSICE

By marking his territory, the new president gives free rein to his own inclinations. “Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was an authentic lover of 18th century furniture ^{century, recalls Renaud Serrette, inspector of national furniture collections. Personally, he had acquired a certain number of objects, including one pendulum that belonged to Louis XV and a porcelain of Sèvres by Marie-Antoinette. “}

Passing from Louis XV style to Louis XVI style, the president elected on the promise of modernizing the country and dusting off policy hianatus between his hymn to “change” and his marked appetite for the monarchical pump. Perfect expression of this duplication of personality, enthroned on the chimney of his office a photo of John F. Kennedy but also a lot of medals celebrating the glorious reign of Louis XIV.

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