ROME (Reuters) – Former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano has died at the age of 98, the Council presidency announced on Thursday.
While the position of head of state is essentially honorary in Italy, this former communist played a major role during the sovereign debt crisis experienced by the country from 2011.
After the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi, unable to convince the financial markets of his budgetary seriousness, Giorgio Napolitano appointed European Commissioner Mario Monti at the head of a government of technocrats responsible for straightening out the country’s finances.
Two years later, he once again had to work after legislative elections without an obvious winner to promote the formation of a grand coalition led by the social democrat Enrico Letta.
Giorgio Napolitano was elected president in 2006 before being reappointed in an unprecedented manner in the history of the Italian Republic for a second seven-year term in 2013. He resigned in 2015, citing his age.
He was one of the few people warned in advance of the unexpected resignation of Pope Benedict XVI in February 2013.
“A prominent figure in Italian politics and a convinced European, former President Giorgio Napolitano has left us. I send my sincere condolences to the Italian people,” wrote French President Emmanuel Macron on the social network ).
(Written by Keith Weir, French version Bertrand Boucey, edited by Camille Raynaud)
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