Bernadette Chirac, widow of former French president Jacques Chirac and known as the discreet companion of one of France’s key postwar politicians, died at the age of 93, their daughter told AFP Saturday.
She “passed away peacefully surrounded by her family in the evening,” on Friday, said Claude Chirac. Bernadette Chirac had just turned 93 on May 18, she added.
She was seen as being in the shadow of her charismatic husband, who served as president from 1995-2007, a term during which he famously opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq. Jacques Chirac died in 2019.
But Bernadette Chirac was also the only French first lady to have held political office in her own right, as a general councillor in the central Correze, department, a position she held continuously from 1979 to 2015.
