Chantal Compaoré was born Chantal Terrasson de Fougères, in the Ivory Coast. Her parents were Simone Vicens, who had roots in French Upper Volta (current Burkina Faso) and Dr. Jean Terrasson Kourouma, the extramarital son of the French colonial administrator Jean Henri Terrasson de Fougères, who served for many years as Governor of French Sudan. Her family were closely related to that of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the country's first President from 1960 until his death in 1993, who maintained policies of strong anti-communism and close relations with the former colonial power France, leading Ivory Coast as a single-party state. Some sources have alleged that Chantal was actually the daughter of Houphouët-Boigny, who fathered a child out of wedlock in 1961.