Family, Friends, Dignitaries Remember Mitterrand

Former French President Francois Mitterrand was laid to rest Thursday in a ceremony for relatives and friends in his hometown of Jarnac, while in Paris, kings, princes and presidents came to Notre Dame Cathedral to bid him farewell.

At the invitation of Mitterrand’s widow, Danielle, the former president’s mistress, Anne Pingeot, and Pingeot’s and Mitterrand’s 21-year-old daughter, Mazarine, stood beside Mrs. Mitterrand at the funeral in Jarnac, where Mitterrand’s body was interred in his family’s tomb after being flown from Paris.

Mitterrand, the Socialist who led France longer than anyone else this century, died Monday of prostate cancer at 79.

Also attending the private ceremony were the Mitterrands’ sons, Gilbert and Jean-Christophe, and their grandchildren.

Loudspeakers carried the funeral Mass to a crowd of about 10,000 that gathered outside St. Pierre Church and through the streets of Jarnac. Mitterrand’s parents were married in the austere 12th-century stone chapel, and he was baptized and received his first communion there.

“He brought light into obscurity. He fought against injustice,” Bishop Claud Dagens said in his eulogy of the man who led France from 1981 to 1995.

President Jacques Chirac declared Thursday a national day of mourning. Flags flew at half-staff, and students across France stood for a minute of silence.

In Paris, Mitterrand’s own thoughts on life and death rang in the ears of about 250 world leaders gathered at Notre Dame. “Is there not, in man, a bit of eternity that death gives birth to?” Mitterrand mused in recently published writings, which Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger quoted in his eulogy.

Mitterrand’s longtime friend and political ally, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, shed tears as a choir sang. Vice President Al Gore sat in the second row behind Gen. Gnassingbe Eyadema, the president of Togo. Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, Britain’s Prince Charles, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Spain’s King Juan Carlos I, Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustav and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were among those seated in the front row reserved for heads of state.

On the plaza outside, hundreds watched a large screen broadcasting the Mass.

“The whole world sent its leaders to salute Francois Mitterrand,” Loic Ducos, a 19-year-old philosophy student, said as he watched the screen. “I’m really very happy and honored to be here. I’ll remember this for the rest of my life.”