Michèle Bennett
| Michèle Bennett | |
|---|---|
Duvaliers fleeing Haiti on 7 February 1986
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| First Lady of Haiti | |
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In office 27 May 1980 – 7 February 1986 |
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| Preceded by | Simone Duvalier |
| Succeeded by | Gabrielle Namphy |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
15 January 1950 Port‑au‑Prince, Haiti |
| Spouse(s) |
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| Children |
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Michèle Bennett (born 15 January 1950) is the former First Lady of Haiti and the ex‑wife of former President for Life of Haiti, Jean‑Claude Duvalier. They fled to France together when he resigned in 1986; they divorced in 1990.
Michèle Bennett was born in Port‑au‑Prince, Haiti, in 1950, the daughter of Aurore (née Ligondé) and Ernest Bennett, a Haitian businessman and descendant of King Henry I of Haiti. Her father owned more than 50,000 acres (20,000 ha) of land, growing mostly coffee, and employing 1,600 estate workers in addition to 900 more in his business. Her uncle was Haiti's Roman Catholic Archbishop Monsignor François‑Wolff Ligondé. The Bennetts are light‑skinned mulattoes (of mixed race) from a largely black country.
At 15, Bennett moved to rural New York state, where she was educated at St. Mary's School in Peekskill. She went on to work as a secretary at a slipper company in New York City’s Garment District. In 1973, she married Alix Pasquet, Jr., the son of Captain Alix Pasquet, a well known mulatto officer and Tuskegee Airman who in 1958 led a coup attempt against François Duvalier. By Pasquet she had two children, Alix III and Sacha. After her 1978 divorce from Pasquet, she had a career in public relations for Habitation LeClerc, an upscale hotel in Port‑au‑Prince.
Although Bennett met Jean‑Claude Duvalier in high school, the pair did not become romantically engaged until ten years later. In 1980, Bennett married President Duvalier. Their wedding, Haiti's social event of the decade, cost an unprecedented US$ 2 million and was received enthusiastically by the majority of Haitians. Michèle Duvalier at first endeared herself to the population by distributing clothes and food to the needy as well as opening several medical clinics and schools for the poor. In the six weeks following the wedding, Michèle and Jean‑Claude toured Haiti, turning up unannounced at meetings, marketplaces, and other gathering places, which garnered “approving glances and words most everywhere”. On a visit to Haiti, Mother Teresa remarked that she had “never seen the poor people being so familiar with their head of state as they were with [Michèle]”. With Jean‑Claude, Michèle had her third and fourth children: Nicolas and Anya.
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