File photo: Former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr attends an interview with Reuters in Versailles, near Paris, France, January 31, 2019. Reuters/Philippe Wojazer/File Photo
Paris: Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, who became Iran's first president after the 1979 revolution before fleeing into exile in France, died on Saturday aged 88.
He died at the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris following a long illness, his wife and children said on Bani-Sadr's official website.
Bani-Sadr had emerged from obscurity to become Iran's first president in January 1980 with the help of the clergy.
But after a power struggle with radical clerics he fled the following year to France, where he spent the rest of his life.
His family would like him to be buried in Versailles, the Paris suburb where he lived during his exile, his longstanding assistant, Paknejad Jamaledin, told Reuters by telephone.
