Michelle Bachelet

Bachelet's great-great-grandfather, Louis-Joseph Bachelet Lapierre (1820–1864), was a French wine merchant from Chassagne-Montrachet who immigrated to Chile with his Parisian wife, Françoise Jeanne Beault, in 1860.

He was hired as a wine-making expert by the Subercaseaux vineyards in Santiago.

Bachelet Lapierre's son, Germán, was born in Santiago in 1862 and, in 1891, married Luisa Brandt Cadot, a Chilean of French and Swiss descent.

They gave birth to Alberto Bachelet Brandt in 1894.

Bachelet's maternal great-grandfather, Máximo Jeria Chacón, of Spanish (Basque region) and Greek heritage, was the first person to receive a degree in agronomic engineering in Chile.

He founded several agronomy schools in the country and married Lely Johnson, the daughter of an English physician working in Chile.

Their son, Máximo Jeria Johnson, married Ángela Gómez Zamora and had five children, with Bachelet's mother being the fourth.

Bachelet was born in La Cisterna, a middle-class suburb of Santiago.

She was named after French actress Michèle Morgan.

Bachelet spent many of her childhood years traveling around her native Chile, moving with her family from one military base to another.

She lived and attended primary schools in, among other places, Quintero, Antofagasta, and San Bernardo.

Bachelet is the second child of archaeologist Ángela Jeria Gómez (1926–2020) and Air Force Brigadier General Alberto Bachelet Martínez (1923–1974).

She was the first President of Chile to be re-elected since 1932.

Bachelet, a physician who has studied military strategy at the university level, previously served as the Health Minister and Defense Minister under her predecessor, Ricardo Lagos.

She is a separated mother of three and identifies as an agnostic.

In addition to her native Spanish, she speaks English fluently and has some proficiency in German, French, and Portuguese.

Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (born 29 September 1951 ) is a Chilean politician who served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2018 to 2022.

In 1962, she moved with her family to the United States, where her father was assigned to the military mission at the Chilean Embassy in Washington, D.C. Her family lived for almost two years in Bethesda, Maryland, where she attended Western Junior High School and learned to speak English fluently.

Returning to Chile in 1964, she graduated in 1969 from Liceo Nº 1 Javiera Carrera, a prestigious girls' public high school, finishing near the top of her class.

There she was class president, a member of the choir and volleyball teams, and part of a theater group and a band, "Las Clap Clap," which she co-founded and which toured around several school festivals.

Thanks to the assistance of Roberto Kozak, Bachelet was able to go into exile in Australia, where her older brother, Alberto, had moved in 1969.

In 1970, after obtaining a relatively high score on the university admission test, she entered medical school at the University of Chile, where she was selected in the 113th position (out of 160 admitted applicants).

She originally intended to study sociology or economics, but was prevailed upon by her father to study medicine instead.

She has said she opted for medicine because it was 'a concrete way of helping people cope with pain' and 'a way to contribute to improve health in Chile.'

Facing growing food shortages, the government of Salvador Allende placed Bachelet's father in charge of the Food Distribution Office.

When General Augusto Pinochet suddenly came to power via the 11 September 1973 coup d'état, Bachelet's father was detained at the Air War Academy on charges of treason.

Following months of daily torture at Santiago's Public Prison, he suffered a cardiac arrest that resulted in his death on 12 March 1974.

In early January 1975, Bachelet and her mother were detained at their apartment by two DINA agents, who blindfolded them and drove them to Villa Grimaldi, a notorious secret detention center in Santiago, where they were separated and subjected to interrogation and torture.

In May 1975, Bachelet left Australia and later relocated to East Germany, where she was assigned an apartment in Am Stern, Potsdam by the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Her mother joined her a month later and lived separately in Leipzig.

In October 1976, Bachelet began working at a communal clinic in the Babelsberg neighborhood as a stepping stone to furthering her medical studies at a university in East Germany.

Of her torture, Bachelet said, in 2004, that "it was nothing in comparison to what others suffered".

She was "yelled at using abusive language, shaken", and both she and her mother were "threatened with the killing of the other".

She was "never tortured with electricity", but she did see it done to other prisoners.

She previously served as President of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and from 2014 to 2018 for the Socialist Party of Chile.

She is the first woman to hold the Chilean presidency.

After leaving the presidency in 2010 and before becoming eligible for re-election, she was appointed as the first executive director of the newly established United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.

In December 2013, Bachelet was re-elected with over 62% of the vote, surpassing the 54% she received in 2006.

In 2013, Bachelet said she had been interrogated by DINA chief Manuel Contreras there.

Some days later, Bachelet was transferred to Cuatro Álamos ("Four Poplars") detention center, where she was held until the end of January.