Bernadette Chirac, formidable former first lady of France, dies aged 93

Bernadette Chirac described the 63 years she was together with her husband Jacques as a long lesson in endurance. Photograph: Derek Hudson/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Bernadette Chirac described the 63 years she was together with her husband Jacques as a long lesson in endurance. Photograph: Derek Hudson/Getty Images Bernadette Chirac, formidable former first lady of France, dies aged 93 Widow of French ex-president Jacques Chirac was a steely behind-the-scenes operator known for her charity work Bernadette Chirac, the formidable widow of the former French president Jacques Chirac and a driving force behind his political rise, has died at the age of 93. As France’s first lady for 12 years, Chirac was a steely behind-the-scenes operator in support of her husband, who served twice as prime minister, 18 years as mayor of Paris and two terms as president. View image in fullscreen Bernadette Chirac visiting a market in Place Maubert during her husband's campaign to be elected Mayor of Paris, France, 24 February 1977. Photograph: Jacques Pavlovsky/Sygma/Getty Images When he stood back from public life in 2007, she became a politician in her own right as a councillor in the couple’s constituency in Corrèze in central France and announced: “My husband no longer does politics, but I do.” If asked about her husband at the smart dinners and society events she continued to attend, after he retired she would reply: “He’s looking after the dog.” Chirac had always said she hoped to predecease her husband; when he died in 2019, she was too frail to attend his state farewell, having made her 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 and was well connected and clever. It was while enrolled at the prestigious Sciences Po university that she met Jacques, a handsome and popular young man. Although her parents were not impressed, convinced he was beneath her social station, the couple married in 1956. View image in fullscreen Bernadette and Jacques Chirac at the Château de Bity in Sarran after departing his role as prime minister. Sarran, France, 30 August 1976. Photograph: ANDBZ/ABACA/Shutterstock Jacques Chirac’s reputation as a womaniser was well-founded and she described the 63 years they were together as a long lesson in endurance, weathering his notorious infidelities with dry humour. “At first it was hard. I was heartbroken. Then I got used to it,” she said later in a television documentary. “I told myself that’s how things were and I had to accept it with as much dignity as possible.” Asked why she never divorced her husband she cited her Catholic upbringing, adding: “And I loved my husband very much.” View image in fullscreen Bernadette Chirac with the then US first lady, Hillary Clinton, as they arrive at the Correze Regional Council in Tulle, central France, 12 May 1998. Photograph: