First lady tells of Chirac's infidelity

The French first lady, Bernadette Chirac, reveals in a book published this week that she considered leaving her husband because of his extra-marital affairs.

She says she decided to stay with Jacques Chirac for the sake of their children and because she was a "prisoner of the traditions" of their ultra-conservative families.

In a remarkably frank interview – on a subject rarely discussed in print in France – the President's wife says that, during their 45 years of marriage, she has been obliged to warn her husband "several times" that "Napoleon started to lose everything the day that he abandoned Josephine".

Her comments appear in Conversation, a book of interviews with a journalist that has been interpreted as a declaration of her intention to run a "family values" campaign on behalf of her husband in the election next spring. But Mrs Chirac, 68, also goes out of her way in the book to prove that she is more than just a dutiful wife and political cipher. Without being pressed by the interviewer – Patrick de Carolis, editor of Le Figaro Magazine – she provides insights into two long-hidden aspects of the Chiracs' lives.

When the interviewer asks Mrs Chirac if she was jealous of her husband's success, she retorts: "Jealous of his success, no. Jealous, yes. And there was good reason to be. My husband is not an ordinary man. It is obvious ... How can I put it elegantly?"

Mr Chirac's extra-marital exploits have long been rumoured, but rarely mentioned in print. However, a recent "drive-and-tell" book by Mr Chirac's former chauffeur spoke of many relationships with other women, both before and after he was elected President in 1995. Mrs Chirac, who is said to have been deeply wounded by that book, appears to have seized an opportunity to tell her side of the story.

She says there were many "difficult moments" in their marriage. "Nowadays, at the first test, people leave each other. In my case, I hesitated to do that because I had children, but also because I was the prisoner of certain family traditions. Convention insisted that, faced with those kinds of situations, you put up a facade and took the punishment.

"My mother-in-law warned me, 'Above all, we want no divorce in the family.' She [the President's mother] had an extraordinary cheek. He inherited it from her."

Despite a reputation for stiffness (Mrs Chirac admits she still calls her husband by the formal "vous", not the familiar "tu"), she emerges from the book as a warm, outspoken person with a dry wit but intensely conservative opinions. She offers her experience as a woman determined to hold on to her marriage as a shining example to couples – especially women – who dump their partners "by a reflex of selfishness" at the first problem.

The other aspect of the Chiracs' private lives on which she lifts the curtain is the long illness of their elder daughter, Laurence, 43, who became anorexic and suicidal after an attack of meningitis in the early 1970s. Although she completed her medical studies, Laurence has for many years been confined to a mental institution for her own safety.

Mrs Chirac says her husband's career made him an absentee father for long periods. "The children suffered from it. Laurence, in her own way ... Laurence whose illness has blighted our lives. She is with us and at the same time she is not with us."