Bernadette Chirac, wife of former French president, dies at 93

Bernadette Chirac, the wife of former French President Jacques Chirac, died on Saturday at the age of 93. The couple had taken in Anh Dao Traxel, a Vietnamese refugee, in 1979, considering her their "daughter of the heart."

Anh Dao Traxel, born Dng Anh Dao on August 22, 1957, in southern Saigon, came from a bourgeois family. Her early childhood was happy. Her father, an school principal, collaborated with the Americans during the Vietnam War. However, her life changed dramatically on April 30, 1975, when communist troops invaded Saigon. Her father was sent to a re-education camp, which she described as destructive, leaving him a frail, forgetful old man.

Facing poverty, the 18-year-old Anh Dao tried to support her family by selling goods at the market and bus station. Her family even turned their home into a bistro for a time. It was during this period that Jacques Chirac, then mayor of Paris, encountered Anh Dao at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle Airport. He was part of a group seeking to welcome refugees from Vietnam.

"He was tall, he saw me from afar, I was in a corner crying," Anh Dao recounted in 2006. "He came towards me. He spoke a lot, but I didn't understand what he was saying. I didn't understand at all. But somehow, through his gaze, I felt something protecting me." She met Bernadette Chirac two days later. "She cried. And I, I cried too, she held me in her arms," Anh Dao said of their meeting. "So I told myself: really, after two days, I really found a mother, a father, and I was not mistaken. I immediately felt part of a second family."

The Chiracs quickly cared for Anh Dao, who had endured many hardships to reach France. While the fates of their biological daughters, Laurence and Claude, are known, Anh Dao represented a third, adopted daughter figure in their lives, a bond formed amidst the aftermath of the Vietnam War.

“

On a complètement transformé mon père, il a été détruit. Il était un vieillard vraiment maigre et perdait la mémoire, il ne reconnaissait plus personne. C’était terrible.