Michelle Bachelet
Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (βeˈɾonika miˈʃel βaʃeˈle ˈxeɾja; born 29 September 1951) is a Chilean politician who served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2018 to 2022. 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. 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. She speaks English fluently and has some proficiency in German, French, and Portuguese. Bachelet is the second child of archaeologist Ángela Jeria Gómez (1926–2020) and Air Force Brigadier General Alberto Bachelet Martínez (1923–1974). 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.