Paris, France. Former French prime minister and Socialist leader Lionel Jospin has died aged 88, two sources in his Socialist party said on Monday. Jospin led the government from 1997 to 2002 and was a leading left candidate in France’s 2002 presidential election.
2002 election defeat and withdrawal from politics
At 8 p.m. on April 21, 2002, voters learned the first-round results of France’s presidential election, in which far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen advanced to the runoff for the first time in the Republic’s history. Minutes later, Jospin addressed his supporters, said he took full responsibility for the unexpected defeat, and announced he was withdrawing from political life.
Government record as prime minister
As prime minister, Jospin cut working hours, extended free healthcare, and introduced civil unions granting unmarried couples, both gay and straight, equal rights to those who married. He was seen as progressive while also advocating fiscal restraint, and he sold more state assets to the private sector than any of his predecessors, a position he summarised with the slogan “Yes to the market economy, no to a market society”.
Reflections on his presidential bid
Asked years later about the 2002 poll, Jospin said: “One may regret not having had the chance to prove oneself when there was a single step left to climb, and one stumbled before that step.” He never again held elected office.
Contemporary assessment
“For a time, Lionel Jospin was able to revive reformist politics which, after so many years of crisis, reconciled economic progress with social progress,” the editor-in-chief of France’s Le Monde newspaper wrote on April 22, 2002.
How do you assess Lionel Jospin’s political legacy in France?