Bernadette Chirac Stopped Going the Wrong Way

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Former French First Lady halted going down a one-way street in Paris

A report in today’s Le Parisien newspaper claims that that Bernadette Chirac – wife of former French President Jacques Chirac – was found to have been travelling down the wrong way in a one-way street in Paris on the 27th of February. The incident happened in the 8th arrondissement near the Place de la Concorde where a gendarme on duty in front of a building stopped a car that was driving illegally against the flow of traffic. To his great surprise, the vehicle was transporting none other than the former First Lady.

According to the paper, Mrs Chirac was quick to voice her opinion on the matter of her inconvenience to the surprised gendarme and did not mince her words. She made a decision to continue her journey on foot while her chauffeur turned the car so that it was facing in the right direction.

Such an unfortunate incident is not, however, expected to dint the popularity ratings of the feisty Mrs Chirac, who is amongst the more well-loved political figures in France. A recent survey published by Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui on the 24th of January last shows that she remains the most popular First Lady in the country, with a score of 46%, ahead of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and the late Danielle Mitterand.

Last month, the Mrs Chirac put the cat amongst the pigeons by suggesting that the man who succeeded her husband as party leader and as President would be back in the Elysée Palace: “Nicolas Sarkozy will be a candidate (for the 2017 Presidential Elections), I’m telling you,” she declared to daily newspaper Nice-Matin. “The great political beasts,” she said, do not renounce themselves “unless they become too old”. A veiled reference, perhaps, to her own husband? The 81-year-old recently suffered a health scare, having been hospitalised for a few hours on the 17th of February with acute gout at the Hôpital Américain de Neuilly.

“I am a great supporter of Sarkozy. He has the experience of a mandate and has led international summits of extraordinary difficulty. This will serve him well for a second mandate,” added Mrs Chirac in the same interview, saying that Sarkozy was a man “of great goodness… something that not everybody knows.”

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