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20 September 2007
LYON (AFP) – French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy attended on Thursday the funeral of her former husband, television presenter Jacques Martin, who died last Friday aged 74.
A compact crowd pressed around the entrance to the cathedral in the eastern city of Lyon, as Cecilia Sarkozy, 49, arrived in a black limousine with Judith and Jeanne-Marie, her two daughters with Martin.
Justice Minister Rachida Dati, a close friend of the first lady, was also present for the ceremony, along with Culture Minister Christine Albanel and a host of figures from French television and show business.
Martin married Cecilia Albeniz in 1984 at a civil ceremony which was conducted by Nicolas Sarkozy, then mayor of the Paris suburb of Neuilly. The pair divorced in 1989 and Cecilia married Sarkozy in 1996.
One of France’s most successful television personalities of the 1970s and 80s, when he hosted a series of light-hearted entertainment shows, Martin suffered a stroke in 1998 which left him part-paralysed.
He had eight children overall, from four relationships.
AFP
Subject: French news