The “Iron Lady of the Caribbean” is no more. Lucette Michaux-Chevry, Guadeloupe politician and former minister of Jacques Chirac, died at the age of 92 after a long illness, her daughter Marie-Luce Penchard announced on social networks on Thursday.
“Tonight (Thursday), at 7:48 p.m., surrounded by her relatives, mom left us … I’m in pain … and our grief is immense …”, she wrote on her Facebook page.
The iconic politician, deeply rooted on the right, died after several months of fighting throat cancer. Highly respected, sometimes feared, she held all political positions: from mayor in the late 1980s to minister delegate in the 1990s, in the government of Jacques Chirac, of which she was a faithful friend.
Born March 5, 1929 in Saint-Claude (Basse-Terre), Lucette Michaux-Chevry, in the words of the current overseas minister, Sébastien Lecornu, was “invested to give to Guadeloupe, and more widely overseas, a place of heart and choice in our Republic ”. She will have worked “for nearly 50 years in the service of Guadeloupe and Guadeloupe”, greeted the minister on the social network Twitter.
I learned with sadness of the disappearance of Lucette Michaux-Chevry. Invested to give Guadeloupe, and more widely overseas, a place of heart and choice in our Republic, it will have worked for nearly 50 years in the service of Guadeloupe and Guadeloupe.
– Sébastien Lecornu (@SebLecornu) September 10, 2021
The local political class unanimously underlined the strong character of this politician, omnipresent in the political life of the island for 60 years. The deputy of Guadeloupe Olivier Serva expressed his “immense sadness” after, he said, the death of the “great Lucette Michaux-Chevry”. “He is in my opinion the greatest ‘man’ politician that I have met,” he underlined.
It is with great sadness that I learn of the death of the great Lucette MICHAUX-CHEVRY on this Thursday, September 09, 2021. pic.twitter.com/ueLQsJwx7O
– Olivier SERVA (@olivier_serva) September 10, 2021
A lawyer by training, Lucette Michaux-Chevry won her first election in 1959 when she became a municipal councilor in her town of Saint-Claude, when her son was barely a few days old. First committed to the Socialist Party, in 1981 she supported the presidential candidate Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, thus marking the beginning of her commitment to the right.
His long career is also peppered with corruption cases among other legal disputes. Cultivating an insular power not suffering from contestation, it will be confronted from the 1990s to several indictments, which will not all end with convictions. In 2019, Lucette Michaux-Chevry was however sentenced to two years in prison for environmental offenses and favoritism in public transport.