FILE - In this Nov. 21, 2013 file photo, former French President Jacques Chirac and his wife Bernadette arrive to attend an award ceremony in Paris. France's former President Jacques Chirac is supplanting U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in a street of the French town of Brive-la-Gaillarde in central France. (AP Photo/Jacky Naegelen, Pool, File)
October 06, 2017 - 8:11 AM
PARIS - Farewell, JFK. Hello, Jacques Chirac.
A French town is changing the name of a major avenue, scrapping the name of late U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy to honour a French president instead.
The city council in Brive-la-Gaillarde, a town in Chirac's former fiefdom in central France, voted late Thursday to rename the street "Jacques and Bernadette Chirac," after the president who served 1995-2007 and his wife.
Mayor Frederic Soulier said the city preferred to honour a couple who did a lot for the region rather than a foreign leader.
Bernadette Chirac said in a letter published by radio network France Bleu that the initiative "moves us a lot" and called it a "great honour."
Chirac's name is associated with a Paris museum but it's the first street named after him.
News from © The Associated Press, 2017