Former French PM Michel Rocard dead at 85

Former French Socialist prime minister Michel Rocard died today aged 85, his son told AFP.
Rocard served as prime minister for three years from mid-1988 under Francois Mitterrand, two-term Socialist president who led the country from 1981 to 1995.
Mitterrand appointed Rocard to succeed future centre right president Jacques Chirac after a period of unprecedented left-right "cohabitation".
Born on August 23, 1930 in the Parisian suburb of Courbevoie, Rocard attended the elite National School of Administration ENA and carved out a high-flying political career in a revamped and modernised Socialist Party under Mitterrand.
Rocard, noted for his pro-Europeanism, died in a Paris hospital, his son said.

President Francois Hollande paid tribute to a man he called "a great figure of the Republic and of the Left.