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French Historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse Dies

Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, the first woman to head the Académie Française since its formation in the Seventeenth Century, has died at the age of 94. She was appointed permanent secretary to the official arbiter of the French language in 1999, holding the position until her death. President Emmanuel Macron said her legacy was immortal. Born in Paris to a Russian mother and a Georgian father, Hélène Carrère d'Encausse was a noted Russian historian. She predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union into its constituent republics years before it happened. To look back at her life Newshour's Krupa Padhy spoke to her cousin, Salomé Zourabichvili, the President of Georgia.

(Photo: Permanent Secretary to the Académie Française, French historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse poses during a photo session in Paris on 21 February 2022. Credit: Joel Saget / AFP via Getty Images)

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