Veronica Michelle Bachelet Jeria is a Chilean politician who served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2018 to 2022.
95 Facts About Michelle Bachelet
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Michelle Bachelet previously served as President of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and from 2014 to 2018 for the Socialist Party of Chile.
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Michelle Bachelet is the first woman to hold the Chilean presidency.
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Michelle Bachelet was the first President of Chile to be re-elected since 1932.
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Michelle Bachelet is a separated mother of three and identifies as an agnostic.
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Michelle Bachelet speaks English fluently and has some proficiency in German, French, and Portuguese.
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Michelle Bachelet is the second child of archaeologist Angela Jeria Gomez and Air Force Brigadier General Alberto Michelle Bachelet Martinez.
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Michelle Bachelet's great-great-grandfather, Louis-Joseph Michelle Bachelet Lapierre, was a French wine merchant from Chassagne-Montrachet who immigrated to Chile with his Parisian wife, Francoise Jeanne Beault, in 1860.
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Michelle Bachelet was hired as a wine-making expert by the Subercaseaux vineyards in Santiago.
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Michelle Bachelet Lapierre's son, German, was born in Santiago in 1862 and, in 1891, married Luisa Brandt Cadot, a Chilean of French and Swiss descent.
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Michelle Bachelet founded several agronomy schools in the country and married Lely Johnson, the daughter of an English physician working in Chile.
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Michelle Bachelet was born in La Cisterna, a middle-class suburb of Santiago.
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Michelle Bachelet spent many of her childhood years traveling around her native Chile, moving with her family from one military base to another.
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Michelle Bachelet lived and attended primary schools in, among other places, Quintero, Antofagasta, and San Bernardo.
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Michelle Bachelet originally intended to study sociology or economics, but was prevailed upon by her father to study medicine instead.
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Michelle Bachelet has said she opted for medicine because it was 'a concrete way of helping people cope with pain' and 'a way to contribute to improve health in Chile.
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When General Augusto Pinochet suddenly came to power via the 11 September 1973 coup d'etat, Michelle Bachelet's father was detained at the Air War Academy on charges of treason.
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In 2013, Michelle Bachelet revealed she had been interrogated by DINA chief Manuel Contreras there.
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Thanks to the assistance of Roberto Kozak, Michelle Bachelet was able to go into exile in Australia, where her older brother, Alberto, had moved in 1969.
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Michelle Bachelet was "yelled at using abusive language, shaken", and both she and her mother were "threatened with the killing of the other".
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Michelle Bachelet was "never tortured with electricity", but she did see it done to other prisoners.
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In May 1975, Michelle Bachelet left Australia and later relocated to East Germany, where she was assigned an apartment in Am Stern, Potsdam by the German Democratic Republic.
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Michelle Bachelet's mother joined her a month later and lived separately in Leipzig.
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In October 1976, Michelle Bachelet began working at a communal clinic in the Babelsberg neighborhood as a stepping stone to furthering her medical studies at a university in East Germany.
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In January 1978, Michelle Bachelet went to Leipzig to study German at the Herder Institute of Karl Marx University.
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Michelle Bachelet gave birth to her first child with Davalos, Jorge Alberto Sebastian, in June 1978.
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Michelle Bachelet returned to Potsdam in September 1978 to continue her medical studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin for two years.
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Michelle Bachelet wanted to work in the public sector where she could make the most impact, but her request to work as a general practitioner was denied by the military government on "political grounds".
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Michelle Bachelet completed the program with excellent grades but did not receive her certification for "financial reasons".
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Michelle Bachelet served as the head of the Medical Department of the foundation from 1986 and 1990.
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Between 1985 and 1987, Michelle Bachelet had a romantic relationship with Alex Vojkovic Trier, an engineer and spokesman for the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front, an armed group that, among other actions, attempted to assassinate Pinochet in 1986.
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From March 1994 and July 1997, Michelle Bachelet worked as Senior Assistant to the Deputy Health Minister.
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In 1970, during her first year as a university student, Michelle Bachelet joined the Socialist Youth and was an active supporter of the Popular Unity.
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At the 1999 presidential primary of the Concertacion, Chile's governing coalition from 1990 to 2010, Michelle Bachelet worked for the nomination of Ricardo Lagos, heading the Santiago electoral zone.
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On March 11,2000, virtually unknown at the time, Michelle Bachelet was appointed Minister of Health by President Ricardo Lagos.
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Michelle Bachelet conducted an in-depth study of the public healthcare system which resulted in the creation of the AUGE plan a few years later.
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On January 7,2002, Michelle Bachelet was appointed Minister of National Defense, becoming the first woman in a Latin American country and one of the few in the world to hold this position.
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On 30 January 2006, Michelle Bachelet was declared President-elect by the Elections Certification Court and announced her cabinet, which, for the first time, was composed of an equal number of men and women, as promised during her campaign.
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Michelle Bachelet was sworn in as President of the Republic of Chile on 11 March 2006 in a ceremony held in a plenary session of the National Congress in Valparaiso attended by many foreign heads of states and delegates.
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In March 2006 Michelle Bachelet created an advisory committee to reform the pension system, which was headed by former budget director Mario Marcel.
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The commission issued its final report in July 2006, and in March 2008 Michelle Bachelet signed the bill into law.
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In September 2009 Michelle Bachelet signed the "Chile Grows with You" plan into law, providing comprehensive social services to vulnerable children from ages zero to six.
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Between 2008 and 2010 the Michelle Bachelet administration delivered a so-called "literary briefcase" to the 400,000 poorest families with children attending primary school from first to fourth grade.
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In March 2009, Michelle Bachelet launched the "I Choose my PC" program, awarding free computers to poor seventh-graders with excellent academic performance attending government-subsidized schools.
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In January 2010, Michelle Bachelet promulgated a law allowing the distribution of emergency contraception pills in public and private health centers, including to persons under 14, without parental consent.
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In December 2009 Michelle Bachelet announced the construction of a new subway line in Santiago, to be operational by 2014.
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On February 27,2010, during the last week of summer vacations and less than two weeks before Michelle Bachelet's term was set to expire, Chile was struck by an 8.8-magnitude earthquake that killed over 500 people and caused widespread damage, including the collapse of apartment buildings and bridges and tsunamis that destroyed fishing villages.
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Michelle Bachelet declared a state of catastrophe and, on Sunday afternoon, sent military troops to the most affected areas in an effort to quell instances of looting and arson.
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Michelle Bachelet imposed night curfews in the most affected cities, but was criticized for not deploying the troops quickly enough.
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In January 2009 Michelle Bachelet opened the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, documenting the horrors of Pinochet's 16-and-a-half-year dictatorship.
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Michelle Bachelet used her power as president to send a bill to legalize gay marriages, and sponsored a reproductive rights bill.
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On 10 August 2018 the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein warmly welcomed the UN General Assembly's appointment of Michelle Bachelet to succeed him.
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In January 2010, Michelle Bachelet enacted a law creating the Ministry for the Environment.
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Michelle Bachelet was widely credited for resisting calls from politicians within her own coalition to spend the country's huge copper revenues to close the income gap.
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Michelle Bachelet began her term with an unprecedented absolute majority in both chambers of Congress.
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Michelle Bachelet decided not to grant him a state funeral, an honour bestowed upon constitutionally elected Chilean presidents, but a military funeral as former commander-in-chief of the Army appointed by President Salvador Allende.
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Michelle Bachelet refused to declare an official national day of mourning, but did authorize flags at military barracks to fly at half staff.
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Michelle Bachelet did not attend his funeral, saying it would be "a violation of [her] conscience", and sent Defense Minister Vivianne Blanlot instead.
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Michelle Bachelet's conviction was the first for a sitting minister in 36 years.
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In July 2006 she sent a letter of protest to Argentine president Nestor Kirchner after his government issued a decree increasing export tariffs on natural gas to Chile, which was considered by Michelle Bachelet to be a violation of a tacit bilateral agreement.
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In March 2007, Chile's ambassador to Venezuela, Claudio Huepe, revealed in an interview with teleSUR that Michelle Bachelet personally told him that she initially intended to vote for Venezuela but then "there were a series of circumstances that forced me to abstain".
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In May 2008, Michelle Bachelet became the first President pro tempore of the Union of South American Nations and in September she called for an urgent summit after Bolivian President Evo Morales warned of a possible coup attempt against him.
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In February 2009, Michelle Bachelet visited Cuba and met with Fidel Castro.
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In March 2009, Michelle Bachelet hosted in Vina del Mar the "Progressive Leaders Summit", meeting with US Vice President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and presidents Tabare Vazquez of Uruguay, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina.
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In October 2006, Michelle Bachelet promulgated a multilateral trade deal with New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei, the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, signed under Lagos's presidency.
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Michelle Bachelet held free-trade talks with other countries, including Australia, Vietnam, Turkey and Malaysia.
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In October 2007, Michelle Bachelet granted amnesty to undocumented migrants from other Latin American countries.
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Michelle Bachelet signed the accession agreement in January 2010, but it formally became a member in May 2010, after she had left office.
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Michelle Bachelet's popularity fell during the student protests that year, hovering in the mid-40s.
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In July, after only four months in office, Michelle Bachelet was forced to reshuffle her cabinet, in what was the fastest ministerial adjustment since 1990.
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The Chilean Constitution does not allow a president to serve two consecutive terms and Michelle Bachelet endorsed Christian Democratic Party candidate Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle for the December 2009 election.
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Michelle Bachelet is a member of the Club of Madrid, the world's largest forum of former heads of state and government.
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On 14 September 2010, Michelle Bachelet was appointed head of the newly created United Nations body UN Women by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
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On 27 March 2013, Michelle Bachelet announced that she would seek a second term as President of Chile in the 2013 elections.
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Michelle Bachelet was sworn in as President of the Republic of Chile for her second term on March 11,2014, at the National Congress in Valparaiso.
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Isabel Allende, the daughter of former President Salvador Allende and newly elected President of the Senate, administered the affirmation of office to Michelle Bachelet, marking the first time in the country's history that both parties involved were women.
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However, what remained of the plan allowed Michelle Bachelet to send 200,000 students from low-income families to college free of cost.
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However, Michelle Bachelet's supporters argue that falling copper prices were more to blame for the economic slowdown.
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On 9 March 2018, Michelle Bachelet created nine marine reserves to protect biodiversity with her final presidential decree, increasing the area of the sea under state protection from 4.2 percent to 42.4 percent.
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When Michelle Bachelet again took office of President in March 2014, she made passing Pinera's civil union bill a priority.
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On 8 March 2018, three days before Michelle Bachelet left office, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership multilateral trade agreement was signed in Santiago with Chile and 10 other signatory countries in the Asia Pacific region, following renegotiation of the original Trans-Pacific Partnership which was signed in February 2016.
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Michelle Bachelet maintains that she was unaware of her family's actions and found out about the agreement between Luksic and her daughter-in-law through the press.
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On 10 September 2018, Michelle Bachelet urged China to allow observers into Xinjiang and expressed concern about the situation there.
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Michelle Bachelet said that: "The UN rights group had shown that Uyghurs and other Muslims are being detained in camps across Xinjiang and I expect discussions with Chinese officials to begin soon".
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In September 2018, Michelle Bachelet criticized the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.
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Michelle Bachelet has called on Saudi Arabia to hold accountable those responsible for airstrikes on civilians in Yemen.
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In January 2020, Michelle Bachelet has issued a report on Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and in the occupied Syrian Golan.
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On 9 October 2020, Michelle Bachelet expressed concern about the suffering of civilians during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
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In January 2021, in preparation for the 2021 spring session of the UN Human Rights Council, Michelle Bachelet has issued a report on Sri Lanka.
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Michelle Bachelet's visited Xinjiang in May 2022 which marked the first time in 17 years that a UN high commissioner for human rights had travelled to China.
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Michelle Bachelet "encouraged the Government to undertake a review of all counter terrorism and deradicalization policies to ensure they fully comply with international human rights standards, and in particular that they are not applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory way".
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Michelle Bachelet's visit was criticized by organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Campaign for Uyghurs, and the World Uyghur Congress.
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The New York Times described Michelle Bachelet's comments regarding Xinjiang as "couched in the language of the Chinese government" and the editorial boards of The Guardian and The Washington Post criticized the visit.
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On 13 June 2022, Michelle Bachelet announced that she would not seek a second term as UN High Commissioner on Human Rights following the expiration of her term on 31 August 2022.
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Michelle Bachelet said the decision was motivated by her desire to spend more time with her family in Chile and was unrelated to her recently concluded trip to Xinjiang.