Former French president Jacques Chirac dies, aged 86.

Former president Jacques Chirac, who led France from 1995 to 2007, has died at the age of 86.

His son-in-law Frederic Salat-Baroux told the Associated Press that Chirac died “peacefully, among his loved ones.”

The exact cause of death is unknown, but he had reportedly been hospitalized several times in the last 10 years with a lung infection.

Chirac had one of the longest continuous political careers in Europe having been elected twice as president, twice as prime minister and mayor of Paris for 18 years.

He won the presidential election against Lionel Jospin on 7 May 1995, and again in 2002 against far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen. He was prime minister from 1974 to 1976, and from 1986 to 1988.

Following in the footsteps of previous French leader Charles de Gaulle, Chirac tried to elevate France’s status as a player on the world stage.

He was long the standard-bearer of France’s conservative right and nicknamed “Le Bulldozer” early in his career for his determination and ambition.

As president, he was an accomplished global diplomat but failed to reform the economy or defuse tensions between police and minority youths that exploded into riots across France in 2005.

He will be remembered as the first leader to acknowledge France’s role in the Holocaust, crushing the myth of his nation’s innocence in the persecution of Jews.

“Yes, the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French state,” he said on 16 July 1995.

“France, the land of the Enlightenment and human rights … delivered those it protects to their executioners.”

The country was responsible for deporting some 76,000 Jews to Nazi death camps during the Second World War.

He also took a strong stand against the American invasion of Iraq, when approval rating for his anti-war stance in France soared to 90 percent.

“War is always a last resort. It is always proof of failure. It is always the worst of solutions because it brings death and misery,” he said a week before US forces invaded.

After a historic trial in 2011, he became the first former president to be convicted of corruption after a Paris court declared Chirac guilty of diverting public funds and abusing public confidence, and handed him a two-year suspended prison sentence.

European Union Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Thursday that the European Union has lost one of the strongest defenders of European unity with Chirac’s death.

Mr. Juncker said that Chirac will leave an indelible mark on the EU, and added that he was also losing a “dear personal friend.”

In a statement, Mr. Juncker said that Chirac’s “legacy for France and the EU will stay with us forever.”

Former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt remembered Chirac as an earthy man with exceptional knowledge of the European Union’s workings which he somehow combined with an excellent sense of humor.

“When we discussed tough issues, his humor always brought a sense of relief,” Mr. Verhofstadt said.

“But it is especially his attachment to the European project that turned him into the real statesman that we will miss.”

Mr. Verhofstadt’s time in office long overlapped with Chirac’s and they met often at European summits.