Les Rita Mitsouko singer Catherine Ringer dies at 68 following cancer diagnosis

Passing and national response

Catherine Ringer, the voice and co-founder of French rock duo Les Rita Mitsouko, died in the night of 14 September 2026 at the age of 68. Her family announced on Tuesday that she was taken by an aggressive cancer, a condition she had kept private. News of her death was first distributed in an Agence France-Presse dispatch at 12:15 on Tuesday, prompting tributes across France from musicians and political leaders, including President Emmanuel Macron. Singer Marc Lavoine, who collaborated with Ringer in 1987 on the single Qu'est-ce que t'es belle, spoke on RTL radio on Wednesday morning about their 40-year friendship.

I am losing my friend, my sister, a person with whom I went through 40 years of my life. She was someone I loved enormously. I lost a lighthouse, a reference point.

Rise with Les Rita Mitsouko

Ringer became one of the defining figures of French rock during the 1980s through her work with Les Rita Mitsouko. The duo broke into mainstream prominence with their 1984 release Marcia Baïla, a dance track written as a tribute to Argentine dancer and choreographer Marcia Moretto. Moretto, who taught Ringer dance in the 1970s, died of breast cancer in 1983 at the age of 36. The accompanying music video, directed by Philippe Gautier, presented stylized expressionist aesthetics with costumes designed by French couturiers Jean-Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler. The visual piece gained international recognition when the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired it for its permanent collection in 1985.

Catalogue and visual identity

Les Rita Mitsouko reinforced their position in French music with their 1986 album The No Comprendo, which featured hits including Andy, Les Histoires d'A., and C'est comme ça. The video for C'est comme ça, directed by photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino, featured a monkey watching a television screen, contributing to the duo's distinct visual style in the early MTV era. In 1987, the group played to audiences at the Zénith de Paris. Subsequent releases included Le Petit Train, which directly addressed the deportation trains sent to Nazi death camps, and the waltz Les Amants, which served as the closing theme for the Leos Carax film Les Amants du Pont-Neuf.

Early life and public persona

Born to architect Jeannine Ettlinger and Sam Ringer, a Polish-born painter and survivor of Nazi concentration camps, Catherine Ringer grew up in an artistic household before leaving home in early adolescence. She entered the Parisian bohemian scene and worked briefly in the adult film industry, a phase she never disavowed despite public television insults from Serge Gainsbourg. Known for her independence, Ringer lived for decades in Les Lilas, located in Seine-Saint-Denis, where she engaged in local neighbourhood issues and school matters. In October 2020, she appeared at the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church in Paris to attend the funeral of singer Juliette Gréco.