Margarita Papandreou

Margarita Papandreou, the American born feminist, writer and former First Lady of Greece, died on 18 September 2026 at her home in Palaio Faliro, near Athens, at the age of 102, just twelve days before what would have been her 103rd birthday. Several early news reports rounded her age up to 103, but she was born Margaret Esther Chant on 30 September 1923 in Oak Park, Illinois, and had not yet reached that milestone.

She trained as a journalist and later earned a master's degree in public health at the University of Minnesota, where in 1947 she met Andreas Papandreou, the future prime minister of Greece. They married in 1951 and had four children, George, Sofia, Nikos and Andrikos. She moved to Greece with her husband in 1961 and lived through the turbulence of Greek politics in the following decades, including the rise of the Center Union government and the 1967 coup that installed a military junta. After the colonels seized power, she worked to secure her husband's release from detention, and the family lived in exile in Stockholm and then Toronto before returning to Greece in 1974.

As the wife of Andreas Papandreou, who founded the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, PASOK, and served as prime minister, Margarita Papandreou became one of the most visible and outspoken political spouses in modern Greek history. Rather than adopt a ceremonial role, she founded and led the Women's Union of Greece, known as EGE, serving as its president for eight years and using the position to push for legal reforms affecting women's status, family law and civil rights. Her activism often put her at odds with more conservative elements within her husband's own party and drew hostile coverage in parts of the Greek press, which at times portrayed her as overstepping the boundaries expected of a political wife.

She and Andreas Papandreou divorced in 1989, after which he married Dimitra Liani. Margarita Papandreou continued her public writing and campaigning for women's rights and peace causes for decades afterward, and she published several books, including a memoir addressing her marriage, her feminism and her political life. Her son George Papandreou went on to serve as Greece's prime minister from 2009 to 2011, making her one of the few women in modern history to be both the wife and mother of a national leader.

News of her death was first reported by Greek outlets on the morning of 18 September 2026, describing a peaceful passing at home. Tributes followed from Greek political figures and commentators who recalled her decades of activism on behalf of women's rights in Greece, a country where, at the time she began her public work, women had only recently gained the right to vote and faced significant legal inequality. No cause of death has been made public, and funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of writing.