Former French President Jacques Chirac dies at 86

Former French president Jacques Chirac has died at age 86, France 24 reports, citing his family.

Chirac was in office between 1995 and 2007, having earlier served as Prime Minister for two spells, and Mayor of Paris between 1977 and 1995.

In December 2011, he was given a two year suspended prison sentence for diverting public funds and abusing public confidence.

The death was confirmed by the former president's son-in-law Frédéric Salat-Baroux, according to the Mirror.

Chirac is probably best remembered in France for his 2002 presidential bid, when the centre-right politician made it past the first round despite corruption allegations to face National Front (FN) candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in the run-off following the latter’s shock advance.

Born in Paris in 1932, Chirac’s father was a bank manager who went on to become managing director of the Dassault aircraft company. His mother was a housewife.

He graduated from France’s prestigious Ecole nationale d’administration (ENA), which trains the country’s top civil servants, before volunteering to fight in the Algerian War.

Chirac began his political career in the 1960s when he was appointed head of the personal staff of Gaullist Prime Minister Georges Pompidou. In 1967, at Pompidou’s bidding, Chirac ran and won a seat in the National Assembly for his native Corrèze region.

But it was under President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing that he was first appointed to high office when he was nominated prime minister in 1974. The two men had an uneasy relationship though and Chirac ended up resigning from the post two years later citing Giscard d’Estaing’s unwillingness to give him authority.

The centre-right politician’s second term as prime minister under Socialist President François Mitterrand -- a period known as “cohabitation” in France -- saw an uneasy cohabitation best encapsulated during the 1988 presidential race.

Finally in 1995, with Mitterrand ailing with cancer and out of the race, Chirac won his first presidential election, a position he held until 2007.