Between Lady Diana and France, it is a story that has greatly counted. After marrying Prince Charles in 1982 and giving birth to their two children William and Harry, the Princess of Wales was thrust into the spotlight. During official trips across the Channel, she accompanied her husband to meet our French politicians.
Among them, Princess Diana had the opportunity to meet François Mitterrand, then President of the Republic (1981-1995), on several occasions. The face of the socialist party had forged a strong bond with the British royal family. “François Mitterrand had a very friendly relationship with Queen Elizabeth II”, confided Jacques Attali, his special adviser to the presidency of the Republic (until 1991), with the Parisian.
“He was very fond of Princess Diana, whom he had received for an official dinner with Prince Charles in 1988”, according to comments relayed by Closer. In November of that same year, it was Laurent Fabius, then President of the National Assembly, who welcomed the Prince and Princess of Wales to Paris. The perfect opportunity for a social outing on the Seine aboard a large boat.
In the 1990s, Lady Diana rubbed shoulders with former President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. A friendship that made talk between France and the United Kingdom. Seen one evening at a charity gala at the Palace of Versailles in 1994, rumors of an affair were born over time, with the publication of his novel The President and the Princess in 2009.
Asked in Le Point, VGE restored the truth. “I invented the facts, but not the places or the settings, which I try to paint with a very visual writing,” he said, adding. “It’s a novel in which Princess Diana is the main character. I tried to bring her back to life, as she appeared when we met her”. And, to conclude. “Let’s not exaggerate. I got to know her a little, in a climate of trusting relationship”.
With Jacques Chirac, Lady Di met him in the 1980s when he was Prime Minister. Before being invited by the President of the Republic and his wife Bernadette to the Élysée Palace in 1995. Two years later, the princess of hearts lost her life in a car accident under the Alma bridge with Dodi Al -Fayed and his driver. The evening of his death, the top of the state did not seem present and the president “was unreachable”, according to Le Point. Focus on Diana’s meetings with French personalities in our slideshow.