Bernadette Chirac, the steel-willed former first lady of France who spent 12 years at the Elysee Palace from 1995 to 2007 beside President Jacques Chirac – weathering his notorious infidelities with dry humour while building her own political power base in rural France – has died. She was 93.

President Emmanuel Macron confirmed her death on Saturday, saying he and his wife Brigitte had learned with “great sadness” of the passing of a woman who marked French history, and changed the lives of millions through her charity work.

“A great lady of the heart has departed,” Macron said.

For more than half a century, Chirac was the fixed point in her late husband’s restless climb – through parliament, two terms as prime minister, 18 years as mayor of Paris and, in 1995, the presidency.

Beyond the ceremonial role of first lady, Chirac became a political presence in her own right, closely watched for her influence around her husband, who died in 2019, and for the dry discipline with which she handled his reputation as a womaniser, a subject she later addressed with unusual frankness.

Swarmed by photographers in Correze in 1998 – after rumours that Jacques Chirac had been unreachable the night Princess Diana died because he was with an actress – she stepped from her car and deadpanned: “Calm down. I’m not Claudia Cardinale. Or Lollobrigida.”