Jean-Pierre Jouyet, former French ambassador to the United Kingdom (2017-2019) and former secretary general of the Elysée (2014-2017) was the guest of “8:30 a.m. franceinfo”, Friday September 9, 2022, to talk about the Queen Elizabeth II after her death.
Elizabeth II, “the last figure in the history of the 20th century”
“He was truly the last character in twentieth-century history still with us yesterday.”said Jean-Pierre Jouyet. “The Queen was the last personality to have lived through the Second World War, to have had an active part in this war and to have embodied the resistance to totalitarianism”recalled the former French ambassador to the United Kingdom.
“When you met her and when she was at state dinners at the Élysée, she was a simple person”. “I remember that she was addressing the different people she was greeting, that she was shaking hands with all the personalities and everyone, of course, wanted to be at the Queen’s table”, he said. The former Secretary of State for European Affairs also remembers“a lady who was curious about everything”. “When you met her, you had the feeling of being unique in front of her”.
Charles III: “Far from caricature”
Jean-Pierre Jouyet also crossed paths with Elizabeth II’s successor, Charles III. “I met him at a private meeting with the minister I then served, Roger Fauroux”, he explained. At the time, Jean-Pierre Jouyet was Chief of Staff to the Minister of Industry.
“In this meeting, where there were six to seven people maximum, he spoke to us for an hour about the need for the industry to adapt to ecology”he said, noting that “all that was in 1990”. “He is someone who is very responsible, who cares a lot about young people, who has responsibilities in associations for less privileged young people”, he also recalled. someone far from “the caricature that is sometimes made” from him.
Find the broadcast of Friday, September 9 in full: