Catherine Ringer

Catherine Ringer was born on 18 October 1957 in Suresnes. Her father Sam Ringer, a Polish Ashkenazi Jewish painter, had been deported to multiple concentration camps. Her mother Jeannine Ettlinger was an architect. Childhood listening ranged from Oum Kalthoum and Callas to Brassens, the Velvet Underground and the Rolling Stones. She modelled as a child and acted at eleven in Les Deux Coquines.

She left the family home young, audited university classes, then left school at fifteen to pursue theatre, dance and song. Those years mixed formal stages with a hard, sometimes abusive private life she later described without denial.

From 1975 she sang in musical theatre pieces directed by Michel Puig and Michael Lonsdale, including works after Raymond Roussel and Michel Leiris. In 1976 she met Marcia Moretto, who became her dance teacher and partner on Paris stages such as the Cafe de la Gare and Le Palace. She also sang Xenakis's N'Shima at the Theatre de la Ville and appeared in Brecht's Mother Courage.

Moretto's death in 1981 remained a private grief until Ringer and Chichin turned it into Marcia Baila, the song that introduced their sound to a mass audience.

Meeting Fred Chichin in 1979 created both a couple and a band. After kitchen writing and club dates, Rita Mitsouko became Les Rita Mitsouko. Seven studio albums between 1984 and 2007 mixed new wave, funk, electro and chanson. Breakthrough single Marcia Baila (1985) was followed by Andy, C'est comme ca, Les Histoires d'A, Le Petit Train and Y'a d'la haine.

Clips by Gautier and Mondino, work with Sparks and Iggy Pop, and Godard's Soigne ta droite fixed their image as witty, stylish and impossible to pigeonhole. They were named Chevaliers des Arts et des Lettres. Chichin's death in November 2007 ended the duo as a living entity, though not the songs.

Ringer finished the 2007-08 tour alone, released a Cigale live set in 2008, then Ring n' Roll (2011). The album and tour brought a Victoire for Female Artist of the Year and a SACEM special prize. Chroniques et Fantaisies arrived in 2017.

With Gotan Project founders Eduardo Makaroff and Christoph H. Muller she formed Plaza Francia, releasing A New Tango Song Book (2014). Later live albums, including the 2020 Philharmonie recording of Rita Mitsouko songs, showed her as custodian of a shared catalogue rather than a nostalgia act.

Besides soundtrack contributions to films from Tatie Danielle to Adèle Blanc-Sec, she acted for Godard, appeared in later TV including Capitaine Marleau, and returned to musical theatre in Concha Bonita. In 2021 she sang at the Cesar Awards for closed cinemas. In March 2024 she performed a rewritten Marseillaise when abortion rights were sealed in the French Constitution.

She never disowned early adult-film work from the mid-1970s and early 1980s, later framing those years as trauma and survival rather than scandal.

Her long partnership with Fred Chichin produced three children: Ginger Roman, Simone Ringer and Raoul Chichin. After his death she spoke of incompleteness when singing alone, yet kept the repertoire public. Interviews describe a guarded private person who disliked being fully known, and a stage presence that was free, provocative and widely loved.

She performed in Paris as late as February 2026 and had further dates planned when illness intervened.

Ringer defended artistic freedom and her own past against moral panic, including a televised clash with Serge Gainsbourg. She later spoke about surviving a narcissistic abuser in adolescence. Public gestures included singing for cinema during lockdown and rewriting the Marseillaise for an inclusive constitutional moment on abortion rights.

She insisted Les Rita Mitsouko could not be reconstituted without Chichin, while arguing the songs themselves should keep circulating.

Catherine Ringer died in the night of 14 September 2026 of a fast-acting cancer, aged 68. Her children announced the death to AFP with a family communique describing an immense sadness and calling her a major French artist marked by voice, songs, freedom and singularity.

Euronews, Sud Ouest, Le Monde, La Presse and Radio-Canada reported the news on 15 September 2026. Tributes from French artists and public figures followed across Instagram and X.

Les Rita Mitsouko remain a reference for French pop that refused borders between rock, dance and chanson. Marcia Baila still introduces new listeners to Ringer's grainy, elastic voice and to a grief turned into a dancefloor anthem. Solo records, tango work and decades of live shows after 2007 proved she could carry the catalogue without pretending the duo still existed.

Her story also models candour about trauma, partnership and artistic survival. French music lost, in her family's words, a singular freedom.

• Victoire de la musique, Female Artist of the Year (2012)
• Special SACEM prize (2012)
• Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2011)
• Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2016)
• Victoires nomination, Female Artist of the Year (2020)
• Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres with Fred Chichin during the Rita Mitsouko years