François Mitterrand's secret daughter walked behind his coffin after the state had paid to hide her

François Mitterrand died of prostate cancer in Paris eight months after leaving office. On 11 January 1996 there were two ceremonies: a mass at Notre-Dame in Paris and a burial at his hometown, Jarnac. At Jarnac, Anne Pingeot, a museum curator, and their daughter Mazarine, 21, walked behind the coffin with his wife Danielle and his sons. Mazarine was born in Avignon on 18 December 1974. From the age of 9 to 16 she lived with her mother in a 300-square-metre state-owned flat at 11 quai Branly in Paris, with state-paid protection from 1981. From January 1983 to March 1986 an anti-terrorist cell at the Élysée recorded about 3,000 conversations of 150 people. A Paris court later found that one motive was to stop the writer Jean-Edern Hallier from revealing Mazarine. Paris Match published photographs of father and daughter in November 1994. On 9 November 2005 the court convicted seven people, including Gilles Ménage and Christian Prouteau, and called Mitterrand "l'inspirateur et le décideur de l'essentiel": the inspiration and the decision-maker. The actress Carole Bouquet, one of those tapped, was awarded €1 on appeal in 2007. In 2026 Mazarine Pingeot is a writer and academic, married with three children. Her 2024 book, 11 quai Branly, describes the childhood.