Jacques Chirac gets full military honors as France bids former leader farewell

PARIS —  Former French President Jacques Chirac was given full military honors Monday as past and current world leaders gathered in Paris to attend his final service.

Cutting a solemn figure, French President Emmanuel Macron presided over the ceremony on a mild, sunny morning near the site of Napoleon’s tomb in the courtyard of Les Invalides. A military band played the national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” before Macron inspected the troops. Chirac’s casket, covered with a tricolor flag, was then carried to the center of the courtyard.

Macron, who did not speak, later attended a memorial service at the Church of St.-Sulpice in downtown Paris alongside dozens of French politicians and foreign officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, former President Clinton, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

Chirac’s coffin was driven to St.-Sulpice, where pianist Daniel Barenboim played a Schubert impromptu, as mourners lined the procession route to his funeral service. When the hearse carrying Chirac drove by, the crowd broke into applause.

Standing outside Les Invalides, Nathalie Kabongo, whose husband worked on Chirac’s 1995 and 2002 campaigns, said Chirac reminded her of “a politics closer to the people.”

“Apart from being president, he was a warm man, a man close to people, smiling and with a heart,” she said. “We need that sometimes.”

Those assembled took pictures, shed tears and held signs reading “Thank you for saying no to the war in Iraq” as they watched the flag-draped coffin onscreen.

Max Mignard, who came to pay his respects, described Chirac as the “kindest man in politics.”

A private family church service for Chirac was celebrated before the military tribute and a private funeral was taking place later at the Montparnasse cemetery. A minute of silence was being held in schools and public buildings across France on Monday on a national day of mourning for its former leader.

A mainstay of French politics over four decades, Chirac served as Paris mayor, a lawmaker, prime minister and France’s president from 1995 to 2007. The last French head of state to complete two terms in office, Chirac died last week at 86.

Known for championing the nation’s sense of its own grandeur and opposing the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Chirac is being remembered fondly despite political failures and a 2011 corruption conviction from actions during his nearly two decades as mayor of Paris. As president from 1995 to 2007, he was a consummate global diplomat but failed to reform the French economy or defuse tensions between police and minority youths, which exploded into riots across France in 2005.

Once nicknamed “Super Liar,” Chirac’s popularity soared after he left office. Thousands of mourners paid him tribute Sunday at Les Invalides, where his body lay in state on the eve of the memorial service.

“He was a great man who had an absolute fantastic class in all circumstances,” said Nadine Prevost, who was among the St.-Sulpice mourners. “He knew how to speak to everyone with a simplicity and a grandeur. And that’s what made for the richness of his contact.”