Bernadette Chirac, formidable French first lady dubbed ‘last queen of France’, dies at 93

Bernadette Chirac, formidable French first lady dubbed ‘last queen of France’, dies at 93 She weathered husband Jacques Chirac’s notorious womanising and became a political power in her own right Bernadette Chirac, the steel-willed former first lady of France who spent 12 years at the Elysee Palace from 1995 to 2007 beside President Jacques Chirac – weathering his notorious infidelities with dry humour while building her own political power base in rural France – has died. She was 93. 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 marked French history, and changed the lives of millions through her charity work. “A great lady of the heart has departed,” Macron said. For more than half a century, Chirac was the fixed point in her late husband’s restless climb – through parliament, two terms as prime minister, 18 years as mayor of Paris and, in 1995, the presidency. Beyond the ceremonial role of first lady, Chirac became a political presence in her own right, closely watched for her influence around her husband, who died in 2019, and for the dry discipline with which she handled his reputation as a womaniser, a subject she later addressed with unusual frankness. Swarmed by photographers in Correze in 1998 – after rumours that Jacques Chirac had been unreachable the night Princess Diana died because he was with an actress – she stepped from her car and deadpanned: “Calm down. I’m not Claudia Cardinale. Or Lollobrigida.”