French president's widow Danielle Mitterrand dead

Danielle Mitterrand, the widow of former French President Francois Mitterrand, has died at the age of 87.Mrs Mitterrand died in Georges-Pompidou hospital in Paris after being taken ill on Friday, the French news agency AFP reports.She died at 02:00 (01:00 GMT) on Tuesday, days after being placed in an artificial coma.Francois Mitterrand led the Socialist party and served two terms as president of France, from 1981 to 1995.Whether it was backing the Kurds or Tibetans or Cuban leader Fidel Castro, pleading for an equitable share-out of water resources or denouncing slavery, the causes that she defended ardently were numerous, the agency reported.Born Danielle Gouze in the eastern town of Verdun, she joined the Resistance as a nurse aged only 17, when German troops occupied most of France in 1940.On 27 October, 1944, she married Francois Mitterrand, a fellow Resistance member, whom she met when he was on the run from the Gestapo.The former Resistance fighter backed causes which sometimes conflicted with matters of state.The couple had two sons, Gilbert and Jean-Christophe.After President Mitterrand's election in 1981, AFP said she preferred to shun the glittering receptions at the Elysee Palace, and devote herself to human rights work.Francois Mitterrand died of cancer in 1996, but his widow continued her political and human rights work. The organisation she founded in 1986, France-Libertes, celebrated its 25th anniversary in October this year.