Sir Christopher France Affable mandarin who was at Health during the turbulent Edwina Currie era

SIR CHRISTOPHER FRANCE, who has died aged 80, was an accomplished and versatile Whitehall mandarin. He was private secretary to two chancellors - Anthony Barber and Denis Healey - during one of the stormiest passages for the British economy; permanent secretary at the DHSS and, after splitting it, at the Department of Health; and, finally, in charge of the MoD as Britain’s Armed Forces were cut back after the Cold War. Although France was, as a colleague put it, “a suitably avuncular chap with a quiet and reassuring manner”, his affability was strained to the limit. His creation of a separate DoH was overshadowed by feuding between Kenneth Clarke and Edwina Currie. And his tenure at the MoD is remembered for a humiliating appearance before the Public Accounts Committee over what he himself termed “wild parties”. Christopher Walter France was bom on April 2 1934 and educated at East Ham grammar school. After National Service with the Royal Marines, he took a First in PPE at New College, Oxford. After teaching for a year, he joined the Treasury in 1959. In 1973 - with inflation taking off and just before the Yom Kippur War sent oil prices soaring - he took charge of Barber’s private office. When Labour came to power, amid the three-day week, he worked with Healey as he strove to keep inflation...