Roland Dumas, a French political figure who was a close ally of former president François Mitterrand and served in his government in the 1980s and 1990s, mainly as his top diplomat, has died on Wednesday at the age of 101, his family confirmed, reports FRANCE 24.
Dumas, a socialist, was France’s foreign minister between 1984 and 1986, and then a second time between 1988 and 1993.
After his time in government, Dumas went on to preside France’s Constitutional Council, between 1995 and 1999.
“He was a character from a novel. As a lawyer, he was talent and modesty personified. When you met him, you learnt something,” fellow lawyer Marcel Ceccaldi told AFP.
Dumas was the son of a French Resistance hero who was killed by the Gestapo during World War II. Jacques Attali, a former aide to Mitterrand, recounted that even “after seeing his father shot dead by the Nazis, he became a great actor in Franco-German relations”.
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti on X saluted a man he described as “a great lawyer then a major politician and finally the president of the Constitutional Council”.
To display this content from X (Twitter), you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement.
In the course of his long and illustrious legal career, Dumas built up a reputation as an eloquent orator, a charming advocate—but also, like his old friend Mitterrand, an inveterate ladies’ man.
“Dumas was a seducer who loved manoeuvres, women and money to the point of impudence,” leading newspaper Le Monde wrote in its obit of the prominent centenarian.
“He also had a subtle intelligence and irresistable social skills, handy to extract himself from the binds where his schemes led him.”
It was his weakness for women that would prove to be his downfall, with a trial against him based on prosecution evidence provided by a former mistress, Christine Deviers-Joncour, that she was paid millions of dollars to influence him.
With the court case pending, Dumas was forced to leave the prestigious post as head of the Constitutional Council in 2000, a move he described as “heartbreaking”.
In 2001, Dumas was sentenced to six months in jail and fined 150,000 euros for receiving gifts illegally paid for by the former state-owned oil company, Elf, before being acquitted on appeal.
But he failed to escape a conviction for fraudulently benefiting from the sale of works of art by Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti, receiving a suspended prison sentence of one year and a fine of 150,000 euros.
As executor of the estate of Giacometti’s widow, Dumas was found guilty of colluding with top art auctioneer Jacques Tajan during the sale of 14 sculptures and four paintings in 1994.