France's former first lady who weathered husband's notorious infidelities dies at 93

PARIS — 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 — weathering his notorious infidelities with dry humor while building her own political power base in rural France — 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, 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 womanizer, a subject she later addressed with unusual frankness.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.”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.He...