Anne-Aymone Marie Josèphe Christiane Giscard d'Estaing (née Sauvage de Brantes; born 10 April 1933) is the widow of former

President of France The president of France, officially the president of the French Republic (french: Président de la République française), is the executive head of state of France, and the commander-in-chief of the French Armed Forces. As the presidency is ...

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing Valéry René Marie Georges Giscard d'Estaing (, , ; 2 February 19262 December 2020), also known as Giscard or VGE, was a French politician who served as President of France from 1974 to 1981. After serving as Minister of Finance under prime ...

Biography

She is a daughter of François Marie Joseph Abel Henri Sauvage, Count de Brantes, and his wife, Princess Aymone Marie Sylvie Renée Françoise de Faucigny-Lucinge et Coligny, a great-great-granddaughter of

Charles Ferdinand, duc de Berry Charles Ferdinand d'Artois, Duke of Berry (24 January 1778 – 14 February 1820) was the third child and younger son of Charles X, King of France, (whom he predeceased) by his wife Maria Theresa of Savoy. In June 1832, two years after the overthr ...

by his mistress Amy Brown. She grew up at the

Château de Fresne A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. Nowaday ...

Touraine Touraine (; ) is one of the traditional provinces of France. Its capital was Tours. During the political reorganization of French territory in 1790, Touraine was divided between the departments of Indre-et-Loire, :Loir-et-Cher, Indre and V ...

. Her father died in

Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 further ...

on 8 May 1944. Anne-Aymone is a great-niece of the Cuban-born French designer and architect José Emilio Terry y Dorticos and the aunt of Roger Marie Joseph Henri Sauvage de Brantes, the present Marquis de Brantes. Through her mother she is a great-great-granddaughter of Cuban business magnate Tomás Terry y Adán. Her great-grandfather was

Henri Schneider Henri Adolphe Eugène Schneider (18 December 1840 – 17 May 1898) was a French businessman and politician. He served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1889 to 1898. Henri Schneider was born in Le Creusot, rural France. His father, Eug ...

, himself the son of

Eugène Schneider Joseph Eugène Schneider (29 March 1805 – 27 November 1875) was a French industrialist and politician. In 1836, he co-founded the Schneider company with his brother, Adolphe Schneider. For many years he was a Deputy, and he was briefly Ministe ...

, founder of what would become the international syndicate,

Schneider Group Empain-Schneider was a Franco-Belgian industrial group formed in the 1960s from the merger of Belgium's Empain group and France's Schneider & Cie. In 1980 it was renamed Schneider SA. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the group was comprehensively r ...

. On 17 December 1952, she married Valery Giscard d'Estaing. The couple lived in her family home for the early years of their marriage, before settling at the rue Bénouville in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The couple had four children: two sons,

Henri Henri is an Estonian, Finnish, French, German and Luxembourgish form of the masculine given name Henry. People with this given name ; French noblemen :'' See the ' List of rulers named Henry' for Kings of France named Henri.'' * Henri I de Mont ...

and Louis, and two daughters, Valérie-Anne and Jacinte. As First Lady of France, Anne-Aymone set up the Fondation pour l’Enfance in 1977 to raise awareness of child abuse. In later years, the couple divided their time between Paris and Authon, Loir-et-Cher: Valery died in December 2020 and is buried in Authon. In December 2022, Anne-Aymone Giscard d'Estaing put up some of her and her late husband's art and furniture for sale at

Hotel Drouot A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

as she planned to move to a smaller Paris home.

Ancestry

References

1933 births Living people Politicians from Paris Spouses of French presidents École du Louvre alumni Valéry Giscard d'Estaing {{France-noble-stub