World leaders gather to pay final respects to charismatic and popular former president

This article is more than 11 months old

This article is more than 11 months old

World leaders have joined mourners in Paris to pay their final respects to the former French president Jacques Chirac.

A series of private and national ceremonies were being held during a national day of mourning for the charismatic and popular former leader, who died last Thursday aged 86.

Timeline Jacques Chirac, 1932-2019 Show Hide Jacques René Chirac is born in Paris.

He goes on to graduate from the Paris Institute of Political Studies and attend Harvard University's summer school, before entering the civil service and then politics. He starts working as head of the personal staff of the prime minister, Georges Pompidou, and earns the nickname 'the bulldozer'. Chirac serves his first term as prime minister.

Chirac takes on the role of mayor of Paris, which he holds for 18 years, enabling him to build a significant political power base. Chirac becomes prime minister for a second time. Chirac succeeds François Mitterrand as president of France. It marks the end of 14 years of Socialist party rule. As president, Chirac acknowledges France's role in the Holocaust: 'Yes, the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French state. France, the land of the enlightenment and human rights ... delivered those it protects to their executioners.' Implicated in a corruption case related to his time as mayor of Paris, Chirac is granted immunity from prosecution. Chirac wins a second term as president with 82% of the vote, as all of the major parties swing to support him in the runoff against the far-right Front National's Jean-Marie Le Pen. Chirac's opposition to the Iraq war bolsters his popularity at home, while straining France's relationship with the US and its allies in the operation. It also leads to french fries being re-dubbed 'freedom fries' in Congressional cafeterias. Chirac's campaign for the proposed European constitution in a referendum is rejected by 55% of French voters. The president is forced to declare a state of emergency as rioting sweeps across France. He later announces he will not stand for a third term. Chirac is succeeded as president by Nicolas Sarkozy. With his immunity expired, Chirac is found guilty of diverting public funds and abusing public confidence while mayor of Paris, and is given a two-year suspended prison sentence. Due to ill health he does not attend the trial. Chirac dies 'peacefully, among his loved ones', aged 86.

After a mass attended by about 200 family and friends at the Hôtel des Invalides, the current president, Emmanuel Macron, led a military tribute.

Chirac’s coffin was then driven to the Church of Saint-Sulpice, where pianist Daniel Barenboim played a Schubert impromptu at a memorial service attended by dozens of French politicians and foreign officials.

A private family church service for Chirac was celebrated prior to the military tribute and a private funeral was due to take place later on Monday at the Montparnasse cemetery in the south of the capital.

Macron entered Les Invalides at 10.45am to review French troops as the Marseillaise was played. To a solemn drumbeat, Chirac’s coffin, draped in a tricolour, was brought into the cour d’honneur and placed on the ground.

The atmosphere was sombre and silent. Several military veterans present could be seen wiping their eyes as the funeral march was played.After a minute’s silence, Macron followed the coffin out of Les Invalides.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The hearse transporting Jacques Chirac’s coffin leaves the Hôtel des Invalides for the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris for his funeral service. Photograph: Geoffroy van der Hasselt/AFP/Getty Images

The death of Chirac, who was president of France from 1995 to 2007, prompted a flood of tributes to a man whose political career spanned more than four decades and who was seen as one of France’s last great statespeople.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The former US president Bill Clinton arriving at Saint-Sulpice for the funeral service for Jacques Chirac. Photograph: Michel Euler/AP

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was among 30 world leaders who flew to Paris to attend the funeral. The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, and the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, also attended, as as did former leaders who worked with Chirac, including Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the European commission, and the former US president Bill Clinton.

French politicians turned out en masse, including three former presidents – 93-year-old Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Chirac’s successor, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the former Socialist president François Hollande.

Before the military ceremony, Chirac’s widow, Bernadette, 86, attended a private mass at the Saint-Louis-des-Invalides cathedral. The couple were married for 63 years and had two daughters, Laurence, who died in 2016, and Claude.

Chirac will be buried next to his elder daughter, who had anorexia for most of her adult life and died at the age of 58.

Chirac’s only grandchild, Martin Chirac-Rey, 23, addressed about 200 family and friends after the private service.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jacques Chirac’s daughter Claude, flanked by her husband Frederic Salat-Baroux (right) and her son Martin Rey Chirac at the memorial service at Saint-Sulpice. Photograph: Ian Langsdon/EPA

The Elysée Palace had declared a day of national mourning and the tricolour over Les Invalides flew at half-mast, as it did across France. A minute’s silence was observed in public institutions and schools.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chirac’s successor, Nicolas Sarkozy (right), arrives at Saint-Sulpice with his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, for the funeral. Photograph: Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images

Although Chirac has been accused of achieving little during his 12 years in the Elysée and was later convicted for his role in a “fake jobs” scandal during his time as mayor of Paris between 1977 and 1995, a poll by the Journal du Dimanche newspaper showed the French consider him their best president of the modern era, alongside the country’s postwar leader, Charles de Gaulle.

His two main achievements were being the first French leader to publicly recognise France’s role in the deportation of Jews during the Nazi occupation of the country during the second world war, and opposing the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

Chirac was also known for his bonhomie and reputation as a bon vivant, with a gargantuan appetite for traditional food washed down with a few beers.

The Hôtel des Invalides is, as its name suggests, a former military hospital and retirement home for veterans. It is the site of museums and monuments to France’s military history and contains the tombs of its war heroes, including the former emperor Napoléon Bonaparte.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Members of the public queued on Sunday to say farewell to Chirac as his coffin lay in state at the Saint-Louis-des-Invalides cathedral. Photograph: Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images

On Sunday, thousands of people turned up at Les Invalides, where Chirac’s coffin lay in state, to pay their respects. Many left flowers and apples, his favourite fruit.

The tributes will continue during the week, when the French team don black armbands for their Rugby World Cup match with the US in the Japanese city of Fukuoka.