Merkel hails Chirac as 'outstanding partner and friend': spokesman

• Angela Merkel paid tribute to French former president Jacques Chirac, who died Thursday, as an "outstanding partner and friend".
• He was an outstanding partner and friend to us Germans and to me personally.

"I am very sad to see the news of Jacques Chirac's death," her spokesman Steffen Seibert tweeted on Merkel's behalf. "He was an outstanding partner and friend to us Germans and to me personally."