PARIS, Oct 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Dozens of world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Monday paid their final respects to ex-president Jacques Chirac as France held a national day of mourning for the popular former head of state.
Putin, former US president Bill Clinton and other dignitaries joined President Emmanuel Macron for a funeral service at Saint-Sulpice church in Paris, a day after 7,000 people queued to view Chirac’s coffin at Invalides military hospital and museum.
Chirac’s death on Thursday aged 86 prompted a flood of tributes to the centre-right politician whose career spanned four decades, capped by 12 years as president from 1995 to 2007.
Speaking to reporters after a commemorative lunch at the Elysee Palace, Clinton recalled Chirac as “always upbeat, always positive, always very French, very protective of French interests but in a way that brought people together not drove them apart.”
As NATO allies, the US and France had “made it possible to end the Balkan wars”, he said, adding “I’ll miss Chirac, I liked him and I’ll miss him.”
Other world leaders attending the ceremony included Qatar Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Harari whose assassinated father Rafiq was a close friend of Chirac, and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Chirac’s coffin, draped in a French flag, was carried into the church by his former bodyguards, to applause from around 1,000 onlookers lining the square outside.
After the hour-long service he was taken to Montparnasse cemetery and buried next to his eldest daughter Laurence, who died in 2016 aged 58 from anorexia.
A minute of silence was observed in all public institutions and schools on Monday afternoon.
The day began with a private mass at Invalides attended by Chirac’s 86-year-old widow Bernadette, and a military honours ceremony presided over by Macron.
Chirac’s coffin was then driven across Paris to Saint-Sulpice, where Paris archbishop Michel Aupetit eulogised him as a “warm man” with “a real love of people”.
One of Chirac’s most significant steps on the international stage was his opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Washington was represented at the funeral by its ambassador to France.
Much of France’s current political class attended Monday’s service including three other former French presidents: 93-year-old Valery Giscard d’Estaing, Chirac’s former protege Nicolas Sarkozy and Hollande. — NNN-AGENCIES
