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

PARIS (AP) — Bernadette Chirac, the steel-willed former first lady of France who spent 12 years at the Élysée Palace from 1995 to 2007 beside President Jacques Chirac while building her own political power in rural Corrèze and turning a children’s hospital charity into a national institution, has died. She was 93.

President Emmanuel Macron confirmed her death Saturday, saying he and his wife Brigitte had learned with “great sadness” of the passing of a woman who marked French history beside Jacques Chirac, who died in 2019, and changed the lives of millions of patients through her charitable 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.

She appears in the official photographs with her chin lifted, blond hair lacquered into place, a small handbag on her arm, looking less like a spouse than like an institution.

But the caricature never quite contained her.

The Chanel suits, dark glasses, nasal voice and withering judgments became part of the national image.

Beneath them was a relentless worker and a cold-eyed political operator who, almost alone among the wives of French presidents, built a base of power that was her own.

She was born Bernadette Thérèse Marie Chodron de Courcel on May 18, 1933, in Paris, into money, lineage and Catholic duty.

Her father’s family included soldiers, industrialists and diplomats; an uncle had served as an aide to Charles de Gaulle in wartime London.

But her life would be most marked by her time at the prestigious Sciences Po university in Paris, where she met Jacques Chirac, a handsome and much-courted young man whose appetite for politics would come to define them both.

They married in March 1956. The union lasted 63 years and was, by her own account, a long lesson in endurance.

Jacques Chirac was famous for his warmth, appetite and instinctive connection with crowds. Bernadette’s gifts were different, observers said.

She was controlled, socially formidable, devout, exacting and sometimes devastatingly funny.

The Catholic philosopher Jean Guitton called her the “last queen of France,” and she did little to discourage the idea.

Her husband’s reputation as a womanizer was an open secret she chose, after much pain, to meet with dry humor.

Swarmed by photographers in Corrèze in 1998 — after rumors 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.”

“At first, it was hard. I was very heartbroken, and then I got used to it,” she said years later in a television documentary.

“I told myself that was how things were and that I had to accept it with as much dignity as possible.”

Sent to tend her husband’s rural stronghold in Corrèze while he pursued power in Paris, she did far more than tend it. In 1971, she was elected municipal councilor in Sarran. In 1979, she became a general councilor in Corrèze and held the seat until 2015.

Her influence grew after Jacques Chirac became president in 1995. The role of first lady in France has no constitutional power, but she made the Élysée a place where her approval mattered.

She could be loyal, cutting and unforgiving, and understood that campaigns are made not only of speeches and polls but of debts, slights and resentments.

Yet she also carved out a space for female authority inside a male political culture that had little interest in sharing power — making it quietly clear that she would not be reduced to “the wife of.”

Her deepest grief stayed mostly private.

The Chiracs’ elder daughter, Laurence, developed severe anorexia after meningitis in adolescence and attempted suicide more than once. She never fully recovered and died in 2016 at 58.

That ordeal pushed Chirac toward the charitable work that reshaped her public image.

In 1994, she took over a medical charity that collected coins for children in hospitals. To millions of French viewers, the woman once mocked for hauteur became the face of hospitalized children and families living around hospital beds.

She continued running it until 2019, when she handed it to Brigitte Macron, the wife of France's current president, and became honorary president.

By then, she had long since become a political force in her own name.

“My husband no longer does politics, but I do,” she said to journalists, after Jacques Chirac left office in 2007.

She famously nicknamed Dominique de Villepin, the Élysée official she distrusted, “Nero,” yet also reportedly helped engineer her husband’s reconciliation with Nicolas Sarkozy, the former protégé who had betrayed him politically.

Her 2001 memoir, “Conversation,” written with journalist Patrick de Carolis, sold hundreds of thousands of copies and introduced the French to a franker, funnier and more independent woman than many had assumed.

After Jacques Chirac left the Élysée, his health declined and his public voice faded. Hers remained sharper for longer. Asked how he was, according to French media, she answered in her flat, unmistakable voice: “He keeps the dog.”

Age and grief eventually drew her out of public view.

By the time Jacques Chirac died in 2019, she was too fragile to take part in the public farewell where France and foreign leaders honored him.

FILE - Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy speaks with former first lady Bernadette Chirac during the inauguration of the Foundation Claude Pompidou, Centre teaching and research on Alzheimer's disease, Monday, March 10, 2014, in Nice, southeastern France. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, File)

FILE - French President Jacques Chirac and his wife Bernadette arrive at the airport in Hanover, Germany on Sunday, June 25, 2000. (AP Photo/Jens Meyer, File)

FILE - From left: Cherie Blair, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair Bernadette Chirac, wife of French President Jacques Chirac, Lyudmila Putina, wife of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and First Lady Laura Bush, converse as they walk to a press conference site at the G-8 Summit on Sea Island, Ga., Wednesday, June 9, 2004. (AP Photo/Ric Feld, File)

FILE - French President Jacques Chirac, center left, and his wife First Lady Bernadette Chirac are surrounded by the crowd after addressing New Year wishes to the inhabitants of the region of Correze, in Tulle, southwestern France, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2006. (AP Photo/Bob Edme, File)

FILE - Bernadette Chirac, wife of former French President Jacques Chirac attends a ceremony to pay tribute to Simone Veil in the courtyard of the Invalides in Paris, France, Wednesday, July 5, 2017. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo will hold its third parliamentary election in 18 months this weekend as frustration grows over a continued political impasse in the small Balkan country that is aspiring to move closer to the European Union and NATO.

The early parliamentary vote on Sunday was scheduled after Kosovo's main political parties failed to agree by a March deadline on who should replace former President Vjosa Osmani.

Prime Minister Albin Kurti's center-left Vetevendosje party has held a clear parliamentary majority since the early election in December. But the president in Kosovo is appointed by at least 80 lawmakers in the 120-member Parliament, a majority that neither Kurti nor the opposition could muster.

While the key players blamed each other for the crisis, their inability to reach a compromise has fueled disappointment among Kosovo's around 2 million voters, who want the government to focus on the economy and living standards instead.

Vlora Kryeziu, a businessperson from the capital, Pristina, laments that “the same scenario is being repeated.”

“We will for sure have the same result,” Kryeziu, 52, said. “As a citizen, I have a lot of dissatisfaction, and I think that we as a society are not doing enough to change these things.”

The first inconclusive election in February 2025 left the country without a functioning government for much of last year, forcing a second election in December.

Kosovo is among the youngest and poorest countries in Europe. The predominantly ethnic Albanian nation declared independence from Serbia in 2008 following a 1998-99 war that ended in a NATO bombing that forced Serbia to withdraw.

Kosovo has been recognized by the United States and most EU countries but not by Serbia and its allies Russia and China. Pristina and Belgrade have been told they must mend relations to move forward with their EU membership bids.

European Council President Antonio Costa this week urged Kosovo to end the political stalemate and unite over the goal of EU integration.

“The European Union can support Kosovo, but it cannot do Kosovo’s own homework,” he said in Pristina. “Kosovo needs strong, stable and functioning institutions capable of delivering reforms and seizing the opportunities the European Union offers.”

Kurti has urged voters to give him another chance at Sunday's ballot. He accused the opposition parties of creating an “artificial crisis” and forcing repeated elections despite “the strong and clear will of the people.”

Two opposition parties, the Democratic Party of Kosovo and the Democratic League of Kosovo, in turn have accused Kurti of seeking to impose complete control over all political institutions in the country.

Osmani, the former president, is now running on the LDK party list against Kurti, her former ally, after he refused to back her for a second term in office. She said at the closing rally in Pristina on Friday that Kurti's policies have “built walls between people and fueled division.”

"We have seen politics that has no other vision than complete control,” Osmani said.

Political analyst Artan Muhaxhiri still does not expect a “tectonic change” compared to the previous election, when Kurti's party won more than 50% of votes.

The political deadlock will also resume, Muhaxhiri predicted, as “there are no indications that political leaders are willing to change their actual stances and narrow the existing gap.”

The prolonged crisis already has affected Kosovo's economy that has been hit hard with the global energy crisis and rising fuel prices. The institutional vacuum also has delayed access to the EU and other international funds available for the country.

Associated Press writer Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.

Supporters wave their lights at the closing political rally of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), in capital Pristina on Friday, June 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)

People walk past a giant election poster of acting prime minister Albin Kurti in capital Pristina, Kosovo, Friday, June 5, 2026, ahead of snap parliamentary elections on June 7. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)

Perparim Rama, mayor of capital Pristina, greets supporters at the closing political rally of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), on Friday, June 5, 2026. AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)

Lumir Abdixhiku, opposition leader, flashes victory sign at the closing political rally of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), in capital Pristina on Friday, June 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)

Vjosa Osmani, Kosovo former president, greets supporters at the closing political rally of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), in capital Pristina on Friday, June 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)