Bernadette Chirac
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Bernadette Chirac, born Bernadette Chodron de Courcel (born 18 May 1933) is a French politician and the wife of President Jacques Chirac of France.
They met while both students at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (better known as Sciences Po), and were married in France on 16 March 1956. They have two children: Laurence and Claude Chirac, and an a Vietnamese adoptive daughter, Anh Đào Traxel.
Since 2001, Bernadette has been a leading member of the "Pièces Jaunes," an organization that aids children in French hospitals by collecting small change and donating it to hospitals. She has also helped her husband being elected in 1995 and is herself an elected official in Corrèze, the couple's home département.
Since 1995, due to her husband's position, she has also been the princess of Andorra (titled Her Excellency The Princess of Andorra).
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Youth
Bernadette Chirac was born on May 18, 1933. She was the daughter of Jean-Louis Chodron de Courcel (1907-died), a sales director, and Marguerite de Brondeau d'Urtières (1910-2000). She was older of three children: her sister Catherine was born in 1946 and her brother Jérôme in 1948.
She was born to a fervently practising catholic family and received a strict education from her mother. Her father was called up in 1939 and imprisoned in Germany during the Second World War until 1945. In June 1940, she fled into exile with her mother to Lot-et-Garonne, where she attended the Sainte-Marthe school in Agen. From 1941 to1943, after the occupation of the zone libre, they fled again to Gien in the Loiret. There she attended Sainte-Marie-des-Fleurs-et-des-Fruits school until the return of her father in 1945. The family settled in the sixth arrondissement of Paris. She ultimately started at the Paris Institute of Political Studies in 1950 where she met her future husband but did not graduate.
[edit] Career
- 1971 : Elected to the municipal council of Sarran (Department of Corrèze).
- 1977 : Aide to the mayor of Sarran
- 1979 : Elected to the Departmental council of Corrèze and subsequently re-elected March 8, 1992 March 15, 1998 and March 21, 2004.
- 1990 : Founder and president of the "Association le Pont Neuf" designed to promote exchanges between young French people and young people from Asia.
- 1991 : President of an International Dance Festival.
- 1994 : President of the "Fondation Hôpitaux de Paris-Hôpitaux de France", a charitable foundation aiming to improve the day-to-day lives of the children and the elderly who have been hospitalised. She also took over the direction of "Opération Pièces Jaunes", an annual fundraising campaign to improve hospital conditions.
[edit] Controversies
The Château de Bity, in Corrèze, bought by the Chiracs in 1969, was declared in part a historic monument precisely a month after they acquired it.
The actions of Bernadette Chirac as the head of the "Opération pièces jaunes", an annual fundraising campaign to improve hospital conditions, are the subject of criticism, in particular in relation to the allegedly excessive expenses she claimed from it.
[edit] Judicial inquiry
Bernadette Chirac is the subject of a judicial inquiry. Opened in 2003 following a civil suit by the present mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë (French socialist party), judge Philippe Courroye's inquiry concerns the 14 million Francs (about 700 euros per day) spent by the Chiracs on expenses for their official lodgings at the Paris city hall.
[edit] Genealogy
- Father : Jean-Louis Chodron de Courcel (1907-died ), sales director. Studied at Eton followed by Cambridge University.
- Mother : Marguerite de Brondeau d'Urtières (1910 to 2000)
- Paternal grandfather: Robert-Louis Chodron de Courcel, Embassy secretary and landowner.
- Paternal great grandfather: Georges Chodron de Courcel (1840-1904), naval lieutenant.
The Chodron ancestors were commissioned into the French revolutionary army under Maximilien de Robespierre and later became lawyers, diplomats or industrialists in the nineteenth century. They would ultimately become owners of factories in Gien and Briare, in the Loiret, which were famed for their porcelain and enamel.
[edit] Alleged nobility of Bernadette Chirac
Contrary to common misconceptions, Bernadette Chirac is not French nobility, despite distant connections to a number of European royal and noble families. The misnomer results from events during the time of the Second Empire of France. Firstly, the elongation of the family name. The addition of "de Courcel" to the name, which does not confer nobility, dates back to an imperial decree of 1852, which allowed families to name themselves after the place where they had built themselves a château with recently acquired riches. Secondly, one of Bernadette Chirac's great uncles, Alphonse Chodron de Courcel (1835-1919), brother of Georges, was created a hereditary baron on March 6, 1867. But this nobility was transmitted only to immediate decendants and so does not affect Chirac.
[edit] Bibliography
- 1998: À la découverte de leurs racines Vol I, Chapter Bernadette Chirac, by Joseph Valynseele and Denis Grando.
- 2001: Bernadette Chirac by B Meyer-Stabley (Perrin Edition)
- 2004: Chichi impératrice Les Dossiers du Canard enchaîné, p82 .
- 2006: La Fille de Cœur by Anh Đào Traxel (Flammarion Editions) ISBN 2080688944 (a biography of the Chirac family by their adoptive daughter).
- 2006: Madâme, impossible conversation by John-Paul Lepers (unauthorised biography)
[edit] External links
| Preceded by Danielle Mitterrand |
First Lady of France 1995 - |
Succeeded by incumbent |
- This article was initially translated from this Wikipedia article « fr:Bernadette Chirac » , specifically from this version.
