Bernadette Chirac, formidable former first lady of France, dies aged 93 | France
Bernadette Chirac, the formidable widow of France’s former president Jacques Chirac and the driving force behind his political rise, has died at the age of 93.
Chirac, who was France’s First Lady for 12 years, was a tough behind-the-scenes operator who supported her husband, who was twice prime minister, mayor of Paris for 18 years, and president for two terms.
When she withdrew from public life in 2007, she became a politician in her own right as a councilor for the couple’s Corrèze region in central France, announcing: “My husband is no longer in politics, but I do.”
When asked about her husband at the elegant dinners and society events he continued to attend, after his retirement, she replied: “He takes care of the dog.”
Chirac had always said that she hoped to die before her husband; When he died in 2019, he was too weak to attend his farewell in the state, having made his last public appearance the previous year when a street in the city of Brive-la-Gaillarde was named after the couple.
Bernadette Thérèse Chodron de Courcel was born into a wealthy, aristocratic Catholic family, well-connected and intelligent. While enrolled at the prestigious Sciences Po university, she met Jacques, a handsome and popular young man. Although her parents were unimpressed and convinced that she was below his social status, the couple married in 1956.
Jacques Chirac’s reputation as a womanizer was well-founded, and he described their 63 years together as one long lesson in endurance, dodging her notorious infidelities with dry humour.
“It was hard at first. I was heartbroken. Then I got used to it,” he later said in a television documentary. “I told myself that it was just the way it was and that I had to accept it with as much dignity as possible.”
When asked why she never divorced her husband, she cited her Catholic upbringing and added: “And I loved my husband very much.”
In 1998, on the night Diana, Princess of Wales died in a car accident in Paris, rumors spread that the Élysée Palace could not reach Jacques Chirac and that he was with an unnamed Italian actor.
Flanked by photographers and asked for comment, Bernadette told them: “Relax. I’m not Claudia Cardinale. Or [Gina] Lollobrigida.”
Chirac refused to be constrained by a ceremonial “wife” role. He can be funny, but he can also be arrogant. Although quick with irritating glee, his harsh and often ironic insults delivered in a nasally voice were used against himself as well as others. Her penchant for head-to-toe designer clothes, Chanel suits, large dark Dior sunglasses and lacquered blonde hair, as well as her often noble demeanor, left her open to satire.
In 2023, Catherine Deneuve portrayed her in the film Bernadette, a comedy about her years at the Élysée Palace.
The couple had two daughters, but the illness of their eldest daughter, Laurence, who suffered from severe anorexia after contracting meningitis in adolescence and made several suicide attempts, caused deep sadness. Laurence died of a heart attack in 2016 at the age of 58. The couple’s younger daughter, Claude, became her father’s press and political advisor.
The tragedy of Laurence’s illness pushed Bernadette to become a puppet of this organization. yellow pieces (yellow coins) annual charitable collection of low denomination coins that raises millions to help children in hospital.
French president Emmanuel Macron confirmed her death on Saturday, saying he and his wife Brigitte had learned “with great sadness” of the passing of a woman who left her mark on French history and changed the lives of millions through her philanthropic work.
“A woman with a big heart has left us,” Macron said.
