Bernadette Chirac, French politician, First Lady of France
Bernadette Thérèse Marie Chirac (née Chodron de Courcel; born 18 May 1933) is a French politician and the widow of the former President Jacques Chirac.
She and Chirac met as students at Sciences Po, and were married on 16 March 1956. They had three children: Laurence (born 4 March 1958, deceased 14 April 2016) and Claude Chirac (born 6 December 1962), and a Vietnamese foster-daughter, Anh Đào Traxel.
Since 2001, Bernadette has been the patron of Opération Pièces Jaunes, a charity that helps children in French hospitals by collecting small donations. On 3 September 2007, she became the president of the "Fondation Claude-Pompidou" (Claude Pompidou Foundation), following the death Claude Pompidou, a former First Lady of France.
She 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. She was also a councillor in Corrèze, the couple's home département.