If the saying that "behind a great man there is always a great woman" is true, it is even more true if this woman is called Bernadette Chirac and if she is played by a Catherine Deneuve in a state of grace. And if we add to this that the film The President's Wife by Léa Domenach (in cinemas from 25 April with Europictures) is not a biopic with fiction (as declared in the opening credits), we like to imagine that this former first lady who today she is ninety years old, just as the lady of French cinema represents her. That is, at the same time a shy, sincere, ironic woman, incapable of lying, a feminist ante litteram, capable of taking the stage from her husband who cheats on her and underestimates her, despite loving her. For Deneuve, playing this character was possible "only because it wasn't a pure biopic, but instead there was fiction, comedy that made everything easier and made me freer". "Today - adds the actress, in Rome, guest of honor at Rendez Vous - it is better to keep quiet, in France we can no longer talk about anything except figures, dates, concrete things because everything can be edited on the internet even anonymously." Political correctness? "Today it has great power. For example, MeToo is certainly the right thing, but we need to be careful because women have gained power of enormous proportions." Playing a right-wing woman, Denevue always explains, was not difficult, "because it's just a film, not my ideas". While in Bernadette's case we can speak of a sort of revenge: Chirac was certainly someone who took up a lot of space and didn't give light to anything else and she was a very intelligent but shy woman. "Things changed when she started this charity initiative, the Hôpitaux de Paris-Hôpitaux de France foundation, which became very important and gave her a lot of notoriety in addition to her commitment to politics." And again on the 'shadowed figure' of Bernadette: "She wasn't behind him, she was apart, she had her own ideas about her. He was a very strong, cumbersome man and she was a much more discreet lady". As for the representation of a well-known story, that of Chirac's disappearance during Lady Diana's fatal accident on 31 August 1997, the director explains: "No, there was no censorship, but we only staged indiscretions, gossip of the press who said that Chirac was with Claudia Cardinale that evening, but it was only a way to make people understand how much Bernadette suffered from her husband's constant betrayals." And the actress adds: "In reality there was a strong friendship between Claudia Cardinale and Chirac. He was the classic man who loves his wife very much, but he cheats on her. Her betrayal, however, is only a physical betrayal." While the figure of Sarkozy is mocked several times in the film, both by Macron and his wife, the director explains:"It's all true there, however there were no protests from Sarkozy." Similarities between Bernadette and Marine Le Pen? "Absolutely not. She was a traditional woman, a conservative woman if anything." Finally, what does Deneuve think of another former premiere dame like Carla Bruni? After a pause, the actress replies: "I don't know her, but it seems to me that she hasn't done much for France."
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