National Mourning: Mass and Military Honors to Jacques Chirac

The Saint-Sulpice church, the second largest religious building in the French capital, after Notre-Dame.

Close to the last home of Jacques and Bernadette Chirac. The couple had moved there four years, rue de Tournon, in the mansion of the French industrialist François Pinault, a family friend.

National mourning, mass at Saint-Sulpice and burial in strict intimacy: France bid farewell to Jacques Chirac on Monday, to which thousands of people paid tribute to the Invalides as early as Sunday until late at night.

To the Invalides still, but in the court this time, were held military funeral honors. Before the funeral convoy joins the Saint-Sulpice church. Bernadette Chirac, present at the private tribute, was not it for the solemn service.

A solemn service was celebrated, in the presence of Emmanuel Macron, the current French head of state, applauded on the steps of the church, is surrounded by no less than 80 foreign personalities, heads of state and government, former leaders and members of royal families. To the applause of the audience, the coffin was worn by the former security officers of Jacques Chirac.

This is the eighth time since the beginning of the Fifth Republic in 1958 that a national day of mourning has been decreed.
Flags are at half mast on public buildings.
The French are called to observe a minute of silence at 15:00, especially in classrooms.

Michel Aupetit, archbishop of Paris, left the Saint-Sulpice church to bow to the coffin, and greeted Jacques Chirac, “a warm man”, at the homily in honor of the former -president in the Saint-Sulpice church. “President Jacques Chirac […] focused his 1995 campaign on the theme of the social divide, thus focusing on those who remain on the side of the road,” he said.

A notable absence: that of Bernadette Chirac. Present in the morning, at a private ceremony at the Invalides, the wife of Jacques Chirac gave up this coming. It has been said weakened, it is in any case “because of health” that Bernadette Chirac will be absent from the solemn service, announced, Mgr Aupetit, archbishop of Paris.

The French President recovers his predecessors at the forefront: François Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy but also Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, a large part of the national political class.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Italian President Sergio Mattarella, Lebanese Prime Ministers, Saad Hariri and Hungarian Prime Ministers meet a little further. Former US President Bill Clinton also made the trip. As well as King Adballah of Jordan or Emir of Qatar.

A tribute will also be paid to the former president on the weekend of October 5 and 6 in Corrèze, of which he was the deputy. A few hundred people also gathered in front of the town hall of Brive-la-Gaillarde and on Tuesday morning a tribute sare made by the Town Hall to the former mayor and president Jacques Chirac.

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Gabriel MIHAI

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