“You will see, one day we will be regretted”, Bernadette Chirac, the undisputed specialist in witticisms, used to say, after having remained silent for so long at her husband’s side. Now erased from public life, in her nineties since May, the former first lady returns as a vintage heroine, in the guise of Catherine Deneuve, in the film Bernadette, by Léa Domenach, which comes out Wednesday October 4. A documentary in feature film format, The Revenge of Bernadette Chiracwill also be broadcast on October 8, on France 5.
His daughter, Claude Chirac, who was not consulted for this biopic, was surprised, in Paris Matchin June 2022: “They may not know that Bernadette is still alive…” The same weekly saw fit to publish, in September, a photo of Bernadette Chirac in a wheelchair. This woman, formerly dressed by her friend and accomplice Karl Lagerfeld, wears an improbable Breton fisherman’s hat, shapeless beige pants and Birkenstock sandals. At the start of the school year, Claude Chirac saw the film, alone in a theater, but will not make any comments, she told the director.
Affected by the death of her daughter Laurence, in 2016, and that of her husband, in 2019, Bernadette Chirac seemed to disappear with them. However, she leaves an unparalleled imprint on political life. Her personality and her life stand out in the procession of first ladies of the Ve Republic. She is the only one to have exposed herself to the suffrage of her fellow citizens and to field politics, by being elected general councilor for thirty-six years.
Unrivaled popularity
She carried the charitable work high by having healthy children collect millions of yellow coins for those in hospital, thus achieving unparalleled popularity. Her political opinion counted with her husband, both at Paris City Hall and at the Elysée. Bernadette Chirac even managed – knowing she was indestructible – to show humor in the face of Jacques Chirac’s infidelities: “Why all this press? I’m not Claudia Cardinale after all. »
Her categorical words about political personnel, of which Alain Juppé and Dominique de Villepin have so often paid the price, her moods, place her in a unique box of its kind. The destiny of Bernadette Chirac changes dimension with the publication of the book of interviews she signed with Patrick de Carolis, Conversation, published by Plon, a year before the 2002 presidential election. She talks about everything, including her eldest daughter’s anorexia nervosa, without tongue in cheek.
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