Former French PM Edouard Balladur dies at 97

Edouard Balladur, who served as France's prime minister from 1993 to 1995, has died at 97, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on social media platform X on Monday.

A leading figure of France's centre-right, Balladur was the architect of a sweeping privatisation drive that saw the sale of some of France's most prominent companies, including banks Société Générale and Paribas, later part of BNP Paribas, as well as broadcaster TF1. He also pushed through a reform of France's politically sensitive pension system in 1993.

"Edouard Balladur is closely associated with fifty years of the history of the Fifth Republic. From his early days working alongside Georges Pompidou to his appointment as Prime Minister, he was a leading figure in our public life," Lecornu said on X.

"Edouard Balladur was a statesman with a reformist spirit and will remain a role model for many men and women in his political family," he added.

A stiff technocrat, Balladur was often portrayed by his critics as "aloof and disconnected". Plantu, a press cartoonist, sketched him as an aristocrat wearing a wig and seated in a sedan chair. The satirical weekly Le Canard enchaîné renamed him "His Courteous Smugness".

Balladur served as prime minister under socialist President Francois Mitterrand.