Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
In 1974, after the death of President Georges Pompidou, Giscard d'Estaing announced his candidacy for the presidency. His two main challengers were François Mitterrand for the left and Jacques Chaban-Delmas, a former Gaullist Prime Minister. Jacques Chirac explained that Giscard d'Estaing was the best candidate to stop Mitterrand from being elected. In the election, Giscard d'Estaing beat Mitterrand by a small number of votes, winning 50.7% of the vote which was 425,000 votes. At 48, he was the third youngest president in French history at the time, after Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte and Jean Casimir-Perier.