Marie-France Garaud, a former adviser to Georges Pompidou and Jacques Chirac, died on Wednesday 22 May at the age of 90 at her home in Saint-Pompain (Deux-Sèvres), her son Jean-Yves Garaud told AFP on Thursday

A leading figure on the conservative right, Marie-France Garaud was seen as Georges Pompidou’s éminence grise, alongside another influential adviser, Pierre Juillet.

A close friend of Philippe de Villiers and Charles Pasqua, she was elected MEP in 1999 on their list. She also expressed her support for Marine Le Pen in the 2017 presidential election.

Henri Guaino, a former adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy, paid tribute to her, saying: ‘She exerted a kind of fascination through her authority and that halo of grey eminence. She had a strong character and a backbone, which many politicians no longer have.’

Eric Ciotti, leader of the Républicains party, also paid tribute to her memory on X, saying: ‘An immense figure of Gaullism has left us. Marie-France Garaud was involved in every battle and played such an important role in building our political family.’