The force of nature who stood behind Jacques Chirac

This film does not bill itself as a true-to-life account of the Chiracs. But I supect it is a fiction that contains some age-old truths.

A philandering Jacques Chirac (Michel Vuillermoz) and his wife Bernadette (Catherine Deneuve) in the odd little French dramedy The President’s Wife.

“Stand behind me as you’ve always done.” “Remember you are lucky to have married me.” So a philandering Jacques Chirac (Michel Vuillermoz) tells his wife Bernadette (Catherine Deneuve) in the odd little French dramedy The President’s Wife.

The English language title is one of the oddities as it feels antithetical to the theme of the film: that Bernadette Chirac was a far savvier political operator than her husband, who was president of France from 1995-2007. The French title is Bernadette.

The plot starts with Chirac winning the 1995 election and ends with him standing down for health reasons and his wife supporting “that traitor” Nicolas Sarkozy (Laurent Stocker) in 2007.

Sarkozy is just as oleaginous as Chirac. Memory or Google will remind you of their post-office legal problems. It’s also interesting to note that the success of the far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2002 election was repeated by his daughter Marine in 2024.

The centre of this movie, directed and co-written by Lea Domenach in her debut feature, is Bernadette, wonderfully brought to life by Deneuve, who saves the show. “Well, that’s new to me,’’ she says when her husband tells a campaign crowd that “faithfulness ­matters”.

Wait for the scene where her favourite fashion designer Karl Lagerfield (Olivier Breitman) confronts her over her first lady wardrobe. “People will think I haven’t made anything since 1978!”

She is backed by her timid but smart media adviser Bernard Niques (Denis Podalydes, who is fun to watch). He tells her she needs to “learn to disobey”. She agrees. “I’m taking my real place.”

The other male characters, especially Chirac, are caricatures of men in power. There’s a touch of pantomime to what they say and do. If this was an English film, John Cleese would be the prime minister.

This film does not bill itself as a true-to-life account of the Chiracs. “It is above all a work of fiction,’’ we’re told in the opening sequence. Bernadette Chirac is still with us, at 91. I suspect it is a fiction that contains some age-old truths.

The President’s Wife (M)

French language with English subtitles

93 minutes

In cinemas

★★½