1. Since 2001, Bernadette Chirac has been the patron of Operation Pieces jaunes, a charity that helps children in French hospitals by collecting small donations.
11 Facts About Bernadette Chirac
1. 2.
Bernadette Chirac was involved in her husband's successful 1995 presidential campaign and her personal popularity saw her play an important role as First Lady in her husband's reelection in 2002.
3.
Bernadette Chirac was a councillor in Correze, the couple's home departement.
4.
Bernadette Chirac was the oldest of three children: her sister Catherine was born in 1946 and her brother Jerome in 1948.
5.
Bernadette Chirac's family were devout Catholics and she received a strict upbringing from her mother.
6.
Bernadette Chirac's father was called up in 1939 and imprisoned in Germany until the end of the Second World War.
7.
Bernadette Chirac went to the Paris Institute of Political Studies in 1950 where she met and married her future husband.
8.
In 2001, Bernadette Chirac participated in a series of transcribed interviews with the conservative journalist Patrick de Carolis.
9.
Bernadette Chirac appeared in public for the last time in summer 2018.
10.
Bernadette Chirac was born into the Chodron de Courcel family, an old aristocratic family of public servants, from the Trois-Eveches.
11.
Bernadette Chirac's family includes military officers, goldsmiths, lawyers, diplomats and industrialists.