Jacques René Chirac (1932–2019) was a prominent French politician and statesman. Born in Paris's 5th arrondissement to Abel François Marie Chirac, an aircraft company executive, and Marie-Louise Valette, a housewife, his family had roots in the Corrèze department. A Roman Catholic, he was a native French speaker fluent in Russian by age 17. Chirac graduated from Sciences Po in 1953 (political science/economics), attended Harvard summer school that year, and earned a graduate degree from the École nationale d'administration around 1959. He served as an officer in the French Army in Algeria from 1956–1957. In 1956, he married Bernadette Chodron de Courcel; they had two daughters, Laurence (1958–2016) and Claude (b. 1962), and later fostered Vietnamese refugee Anh Dao Traxel. Later in life, he faced health challenges, including a minor stroke in 2005, a pacemaker in 2008, memory loss, and multiple hospitalizations.

A Gaullist conservative who later aligned with neo-Gaullism, Chirac founded the Rally for the Republic (RPR) party in 1976 after splitting from the Union of Democrats for the Republic (UDR). He served as Deputy for Corrèze (1967–1997) and President of the Corrèze General Council (1970–1979). His key governmental roles included Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (1972–1974), Minister of the Interior (1974), and Prime Minister (1974–1976; 1986–1988). He was Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995 and President of France from 1995 to 2007, during which he awarded honors for diplomacy and recognized the Vichy regime's role in the Holocaust. He also founded the Fondation Chirac in 2008 for conflict prevention and opposed the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Chirac's tenure was marked by controversies, including criticism for the 1995 nuclear tests, handling of 1995 strikes and 2005 riots, and Françafrique policies. He faced scandals over RPR illegal financing (e.g., Méry affair) and clientelism as mayor. In 2011, he was convicted of diverting public funds, abuse of public confidence, and abuse of trust for creating fictitious jobs at Paris City Hall (1977–1995) to benefit RPR members, receiving a two-year suspended sentence.