Catherine Ringer, the celebrated French singer who fronted the influential pop-rock duo Les Rita Mitsouko, died overnight on September 14, 2026, at the age of 68, her family announced in a statement to AFP on Tuesday, September 15.
Her children confirmed she had been taken by a fulminant, or fast-moving, cancer, writing that it was with immense sadness that Ringer’s family and loved ones announced her passing, describing her as a major figure in French music whose voice, songs, and sense of freedom and individuality left a mark on several generations.
Born in Suresnes, on the outskirts of Paris, on October 18, 1957, to a father who was a painter and former Jewish deportee and a mother who worked as an architect, Ringer left school at 15 and moved through a series of artistic pursuits before meeting guitarist Fred Chichin in 1979. Together, the pair formed Les Rita Mitsouko, one of the most distinctive and boundary-pushing groups in French rock, with hits including “Andy,” “C’est comme ça,” “Les Histoires d’A,” and above all “Marcia Baïla,” a 1984 tribute to Argentine dancer Marcia Moretto, Ringer’s own former dance teacher, who died of cancer at 36. The song remains one of the defining moments of 1980s French pop.
Chichin, who had become both Ringer’s musical partner and life partner, died in November 2007, also of a fast-moving cancer, at the age of 53. Ringer initially stepped away from performing following his death before gradually returning to the stage, continuing to carry forward the legacy of Les Rita Mitsouko in the years that followed. In 2015, she recorded a duet with Bernard Lavilliers on the track “Idées noires,” and in 2019 she marked the 40th anniversary of her first meeting with Chichin with a celebratory performance at the Philharmonie de Paris. More recently, she had turned to spoken-word poetry on stage, telling AFP in 2023 that she had always loved the rhythm of words, and enjoyed improvising in rhyme even during live concerts.
Monaco held a special place in Ringer’s later touring life. On May 7, 2014, she performed at the historic Opéra Garnier de Monte-Carlo as part of Plaza Francia, her project with members of the Argentine-electronic group Gotan Project, delivering a full set sung entirely in Argentine Spanish. She returned to the same stage on May 4, 2020, this time performing the classic rock hits of Les Rita Mitsouko, revisiting the catalogue she had built with Chichin decades earlier.