Catherine Ringer died at 68. Her manager told Le Figaro on Tuesday, and her family said she was carried off by a cancer foudroyant in the night of 14 September 2026.
Born on 18 October 1957 in the Paris suburbs, she left school at 15 and later built a career that moved from club circuits to the center of French rock. That arc gives the death immediate weight: it closes the public life of the singer who helped make Les Rita Mitsouko a reference point for several generations.
Les Rita Mitsouko
Ringer and Fred Chichin founded Les Rita Mitsouko at the beginning of the 1980s, after meeting at the theater in 1979. The duo broke through in 1985 with Marcia Baila, then kept a long run going with Andy, C’est comme ça, Les Histoires d’A, Y’a d’la haine, and Les Amants.
After Fred Chichin died in 2007, she returned to performing in 2009 and interpreted Je kiffe Raymond. She also sang on the soundtrack of Liberté by Tony Gatlif and on the soundtrack of Les Aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec by Luc Besson, which kept her in circulation beyond the duo’s original era.
Summer dates
She canceled some dates in the summer for medical reasons, but the illness behind those cancellations was not made public before the death announcement. The gap matters because it leaves the final stretch of her career readable only in hindsight: a short interruption, then a death notice that supplied the missing severity.
“C’est avec une immense tristesse que la famille et les proches de Catherine Ringer annoncent son décès, emportée par un cancer foudroyant dans la nuit du 14 septembre 2026,” the family said. It also described her as “Artiste française majeure, moitié des Rita Mitsouko, Catherine Ringer a marqué plusieurs générations par sa voix et ses chansons, sa grande liberté et sa singularité.”
That leaves a narrow but important open point for readers who followed her recent appearances: which summer dates were canceled, and what medical condition forced the break. For now, the record ends with her death at 68 and the catalog that made her name durable long after the first hit.
