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The Spectator's Notes

The Spectator's Notes: French presidents used to have a touch of the monarch. Not any more

Plus: Requiem for a spymaster, and a defence of Radio 3's diversity

18 January 2014

9:00 AM

18 January 2014

9:00 AM

When I interviewed Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former president of France, for my biography of Margaret Thatcher, I asked him why, when she lunched with him at the Elysée Palace for the first time, he had been served before her: she had been offended. M. Giscard explained that no slight had been intended.

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