One half of the French art-pop duo Les Rita Mitsouko, Catherine Ringer, who has died aged 68 of cancer, was a bestselling pop star with a style that was hard to define; as the lead vocalist who also played multiple instruments, she could switch from synth-pop and rock to chanson and tango. Celebrated in her native country for her ability to surprise, she was an actor and dancer who mixed music with visual arts and poetry.
Although she and her partner, Fred Chichin, only occasionally performed outside mainland Europe, Les Rita Mitsouko worked with the American band Sparks (who called Ringer “one of a kind – a true force of nature”), as well as Iggy Pop and David Bowie’s producer Tony Visconti.
As a teenager in Paris in the late 1970s, Ringer appeared in both avant-garde musical theatre and pornographic films – a past she owned. “No one forced me,” she said. She went on to study dance, and performed at the Café de la Gare with one of her teachers, the Argentinian-American Marcia Moretto. Her vocal skills came to the notice of the Greek composer Iannis Xenakis, who cast her as a soloist for a performance of his work N’Shima in 1977.
Her life changed dramatically in 1979 when she was given a lead role in a rock opera, Flash Rouge, created by Marc’O (Marc-Gilbert Guillaumin) and Geneviève Hervé. Also in the cast was Chichin, a guitarist who had recently been released from prison in a drugs-related case. For the next 28 years the duo would be inseparable; their relationship produced seven studio albums and three children. In 1980 they first performed at Paris’s Gibus club as Rita Mitsouko, later adding “Les” because some fans had thought this was Catherine’s name.
Their self-titled debut album was released in 1984 and included the song Marcia Baila, a tribute to her dance teacher who had died the previous year. It mixed a catchy, gently stomping dance tune against thoughtful and angry lyrics (“It’s cancer that took you under its arm”), and was released as a single, helped by that early 80s necessity, a colourful music video. It reached No 2 in the French charts and sold more than 1m copies.
Ringer was now a star. On stage she wore anything from Jean Paul Gaultier to plastic bags, and when she and Chichin were recording their second album, The No Comprendo (1986), which was produced by Visconti, they were filmed at their home studio by Jean-Luc Godard. The album included more hits, including Andy, and the cheerfully upbeat C’est Comme Ça, and was released in the US, where they toured and met Sparks, who appeared on their next album, Marc & Robert (1988). Again produced by Visconti, it included the Sparks song Singing in the Shower, which became popular on US dance radio.
The album also included Le Petit Train, a quirky dance tune matched against lyrics about the “train of death”, influenced by Ringer’s Jewish father’s deportation to the concentration camps in the second world war.
Système D (1993) included a duet between Ringer and Iggy Pop on My Love Is Bad, along with the exuberant Les Amants, which reflected her love of chanson and Edith Piaf.
Ringer returned to theatre in 2002, playing the lead in the musical comedy Concha Bonita. In 2007, Les Rita Mitsouko released their final album, Variéty, and at last appeared in the UK, playing at the 100 Club in London and Latitude festival, over three days in July. Four months later, Chichin died of cancer.
In 2011 Ringer released her first solo album, Ring n’ Roll, and returned to London for a show at the Bush Hall. She then teamed up with Eduardo Makaroff and Christoph H Müller, from the electro-tango pioneers Gotan Project, as lead singer in a new band, Plaza Francia, with whom she released A New Tango Song Book (2014).
When they played at Koko in London the following year, she was singing mostly in Spanish and dominated the stage in an emotional, theatrical set that included Astor Piazzolla’s classic Libertango and a new treatment of Marcia Baila. Reviewing the concert for the Guardian, I noted: “She never acquired more than a cult British following, but that could still change, judging from this charming and versatile performance.”
It was not to be. She never played in the UK again and stopped devoting so much time to Plaza Francia (she appeared as a “guest artist” on their second studio album). Her own second solo album, Chroniques et Fantaisies (2017), featured her son, Raoul, playing guitar, and her final concerts in 2026 included events where she recited the sensual poetry of Alice Mendelson, a friend of her father.
Born in Suresnes, a west Paris suburb, she was the daughter of Jeannine (nee Ettlinger), an architect, and Sam Ringer, a Polish artist who had moved to Paris to study after surviving the concentration camps. Catherine attended the Collège Honoré de Balzac, but left at 15 to concentrate on acting, dance and music. In 2012 she was awarded best female artist at the Victoires de la Musique – the French equivalent of a Grammy.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, described Ringer as “unclassifiable, irreverent, profoundly French” – paying tribute to her even though she had publicly refused to let him kiss her on the cheek after she had sung La Marseillaise (with her new lyrics) at a 2024 event to celebrate the constitutional right to abortion being enshrined in French law.
She is survived by her daughters, Simone and Ginger, and by Raoul.
• Catherine Ringer, singer-songwriter, musician, actor and dancer, born 18 October 1957; died 14 September 2026
