Paris: Jacques Chirac, a two-term French president who was the first leader to acknowledge France's role in the Holocaust and defiantly opposed the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, died Thursday at age 86.

His son-in-law Frederic Salat-Baroux told The Associated Press that Chirac died "peacefully, among his loved ones." He did not give a cause of death, though Chirac had had repeated health problems since leaving office in 2007.