Raymond Barre

Prime Minister of France during the presidency of Giscard d'Estaing

Raymond Barre, economist and politician: born Saint-Denis, La Réunion 12 April 1924; Professor, Faculty of Law and Economics, University of Caen 1950-63; Professor, Paris Institute of Political Studies 1961, 1982-94; Chief Adviser to Minister of Industry 1959-62; Vice-President, Commission of European Communities (responsible for Economic and Financial Affairs) 1976-81; Minister of Foreign Trade, January-August 1976; Prime Minister of France 1976-81; Minister of Economics and Finance 1976-78; Deputy for Rhone 1978-2002; Mayor of Lyon 1995-2001; married 1954 Eva Hegedug (two sons); died Paris 25 August 2007.

The long career of Raymond Barre, Prime Minister of France from 1976 to 1981 under President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, saw him perform in many roles: academic, European Commissioner, parliamentary deputy, prime minister, presidential candidate, mayor. But perhaps most remarkable is the fact that he achieved all this without ever having led a political party. Barre, an economist by training, was a truly independent politician.

Born in 1924, in the French Indian Ocean possession of Réunion, he was four when his father fled to Madagascar after a business scandal, and never returned. As Barre grew up, France occupied his imagination, especially after 1934, when his mother took him to Paris and they witnessed the violent fascist riots of 6 February. In 1940 he listened to General de Gaulle speaking on the radio. When he was a soldier in 1945 he was posted to Madagascar where he watched and waited for the English or American ships that would take his unit to the war in Indo-China, but they never came.

After the Second World War, Barre became a student in Paris, arriving in February 1946. He studied economics and law very successfully and went on to write a thesis on the importance of time in economic affairs. François Perroux became his academic mentor and friend, although Barre was advised not to become too close to someone who had allegedly been close to Pétain. He experienced the economic disasters of 1946 and the violence of 1947 and felt a certain sympathy for General de Gaulle and his newly formed "Rally of the French People".

In 1986, Barre summed up his life as it had been up till then. Four years a student in Paris; four years a teacher in Tunis and at the University of Caen. Three years working with the Minister of Industry and Commerce, Jean-Marcel Jeanneney; five years in Brussels; slightly more than four years as Prime Minister. "Each stage gave me enough time to learn, but not enough time to get bored." To this he needed to add that he had been an unsuccessful candidate in the French presidential elections of 1988, deputy for Rhone from 1978 to 2002, and Mayor of Lyon from 1995 until 2001.

Throughout these changes he remained, in many ways, a university teacher. He was widely called "le Professeur Barre", or more familiarly, "Barre la Science". His political opponents complained that he was always lecturing them. But he had a real love of teaching economics.

In 1958, before the first government of the Fifth Republic was officially formed, Barre was summoned by Jeanneney on 24 December. The man who was about to take charge of industry and commerce asked him to be his chef de cabinet, the head of his team of personal advisers. Barre accepted on condition that he could continue to lecture for an hour each week at the university. Jeanneney agreed, and said that they needed a statement of economic policy for the first week in January. Barre sat down and wrote one immediately.

After Jeanneney had been sent to Algeria in 1962 as France's first ambassador following the war of independence, Barre fulfilled various missions concerning economic matters and continued his university teaching. In July 1967 he was engaged in the viva of a student's thesis when he received a telephone message telling him to report to de Gaulle immediately. Barre replied with a message explaining why he was unable to do so. This was accepted by the President, who, receiving Barre some hours later, appointed him Vice-President of the European Commission in the Common Market at Brussels, with responsibility for economic and financial affairs.

Barre served on the Commission until 1973, becoming a convinced European and overcoming the hostility that any nominee of de Gaulle automatically received in Brussels. But he remained Gaullist, and never hid his opposition to British membership of the Common Market. He was widely reported as having stated that he hoped that Georges Pompidou, de Gaulle's successor, would not commit the ultimate folly of accepting the British application to join, and during the long drawn out negotiations in Paris, he attended a meeting with the British delegates but was reported to have ostentatiously read a detective novel. His nickname became, for a time, "le professeur gaulliere."

In January 1976 Barre was appointed Minister of Foreign Trade in a government reshuffle organised by the Prime Minister, Jacques Chirac. It was the second year of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's presidency, but already rivalry between Prime Minister and President rendered the government unstable. On 23 August 1976, after Chirac resigned, Barre was named Prime Minister, a matter of considerable surprise. Giscard d'Estaing introduced him as "the best economist in France" (which gave Barre yet another nickname, used by Mitterrand, "Monsieur le meilleur economiste de la France").

Barre's aim, like that of other leaders, was to control inflation, to increase economic growth and to reduce unemployment. The Barre plans of 1976 and 1977 introduced austerity programmes which sought to reduce public expenditure. In March 1979 France entered the European monetary system. Then liberalism became the order of the day. But Barre's forecasts for growth were wrong. The second oil crisis happened. Unemployment rose to 1.5 million. "Barrisme" was not popular.

The political situation was embittered by Chirac's creation of a new Gaullist party, forcing Barre to align himself the Giscardian Union for French Democracy. Not that he always saw eye to eye with Giscard: he found himself at odds with the President's pro-Arab policy and his attempts at personally intervening in important diplomatic ventures.

Giscard's defeat in the presidential elections of 1981 caused Barre to fall back on his position as deputy for Rhone. The worsening economic situation of the first two years of Mitterrand's Presidency brought about a revival of Barrisme and for a time Barre was counted as a potential rival to Jacques Chirac as leader of the French right. Barre's opportunity arose when it appeared that the Socialists would be defeated in the elections of 1986 and Barre would again become prime minister.

But Barre refused the idea of co-habitation, a Socialist president and a non-Socialist prime minister. He thought the president should resign. This position, one of principle, was not understood. Chirac had no such qualms, becoming prime minister for the second time in the co-habitation administration with Mitterand of 1986-88. In 1988 Barre was the UFD's presidential candidate, coming in third behind Mitterand and Chirac.

He retired from politics in 2002. His last office was that of Mayor of Lyon, from 1995, succeeding after a long period of scandals. He rapidly achieved popularity although, inevitably, certain issues, such as the positioning of motorways aroused deep controversy.

Barre was a noted bon viveur, as behoves a mayor of France's gastronomic capital. When the city hosted the G8 summit in 1996 he laid on the most spectacular spread for all categories of guest (including journalists). He did it in part to spite the Parisian dignitaries who had hijacked the organisation of the summit and left him off the guest list for the opening dinner for heads of state. Barre did not leave his pique unexpressed, and made his point by lavishing attention on all the other dinners, where he was life and soul of the party.

He remained Mayor until 2001. He had announced the previous year when he was seriously ill that he wouldn't be standing again for election. While he was lying in hospital in February 2000, national and local politicians publicly squabbled over who would succeed him. "It is strange," he said, "I'm the one that's ill, but it is they who have the fever." The remark was typical of Barre – not only because of his dry humour, but because he had put himself in the role of observer, watching what others were doing.

Douglas Johnson

•Douglas Johnson died 28 April 2005