Former French president Chirac dies at 86
PARIS: Former French president Jacques Chirac, a colossal figure in France’s politics for three decades, has died at the age of 86, his family told AFP on Thursday.
The centre-right Chirac rose to prominence as mayor of Paris before becoming prime minister and then serving as head of state from 19952007. “President Jacques Chirac died this morning surrounded by his family, peacefully,” his son-in-law Frederic Salat-Baroux said.
His time at the Elysee saw France advance on European integration and, in a landmark moment for relations with Washington, loudly oppose the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. But his legacy is also shadowed by a conviction for graft dating to his time as mayor of Paris. After leaving office he was handed a suspended jail term that nonetheless did little to dent his popularity among supporters.
First elected head of state in 1995 and then re-elected in 2002, Chirac’s 12 years in the Elysee Palace made him France’s second longest-serving post-war president after his Socialist predecessor Francois Mitterrand.
On the international stage, Chirac will be best remembered for angering the US with his public opposition to the 2003 war in Iraq.
“Jacques Chirac is part of the history of France,” said parliament speaker Richard Ferrand. He said he left behind a “a France that was like him complex, sometimes crossed by contradictions and always motivated by an unbridled Republican passion”.
Both chambers of France’s parliament - the lower the upper house - observed a minute of silence as the news was announced.