The palace noted that she had captivated a global audience with Persepolis, describing her as a leading figure in French culture and an artist devoted to freedom whose work carried a universal message and earned her immense international renown.

Persepolis first appeared in 2000 and traces the experiences of young Marjane during and after the Iranian Revolution also called the Islamic Revolution. The film version which she co-directed earned an Oscar nomination for best animated feature eight years later.

News agency AFP cited a member of her close circle who said she had died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa her husband and the love of her life.

French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to a great artist who transformed an Iranian childhood into a universal fable.

The palace added that with her childlike perspective her irony her tenderness and her inner demons the author created a deeply moving world with which readers identified.

Satrapi was an outspoken critic of Iran's government and Persepolis her graphic novel memoir turned bestseller depicts her childhood in Tehran struggling under the rules imposed by Iran's Islamic leadership following the 1979 revolution.

It then follows her as she is sent to Europe by her parents to begin a life in exile.

Satrapi told the Guardian in 2024 that Persepolis was about making western readers reflect on the humanity of Iranian people and to realise they are actually human beings like us.

The film version stars Chiara Mastroianni as young Marjane and Catherine Deneuve as her mother.

President of the French National Assembly Yael Braun-Pivet posted on X that France had lost an immense artist.

She said Marjane Satrapi had turned her work into an act of freedom. With Persepolis she had given a face and a voice to the Iranian revolution proudly carrying the fight for women's freedom and dignity.

Satrapi studied in Austria for four years as a teenager at the prestigious Lycee Francais de Vienne.

She returned home for a period after a serious bout of bronchitis to find a much changed Tehran as depicted in the second book in the Persepolis series.

She gained a master's degree in visual communication from the Islamic Azad University in Tehran and also married but then divorced.

Her parents urged her to leave Iran and return to Europe which she did moving to France to further her education at the Haute School Arts Du Rhin in Strasbourg.

After more than a decade in the country she gained French nationality in 2006 but last year refused the French legion d'honneur the French equivalent of an OBE over what she called her beloved adopted country's hypocrisy in its dealings with her home nation.

She supported protests for freedom and rights against the regime in Iran.

And she contributed to Woman Life Freedom a collection of stories about the protests in 2022 following the death of Mahsa Amini who was arrested by the morality police for not wearing her hijab properly.

Satrapi told Deadline at the time how her parents had previously taken to the streets to protest the regime's imposition of the hijab for women in 1983.

He was one of the very few men they did not understand at the time that women's rights are society's rights she said of her father.

She also revealed she had received threats and slurs from the regime regarding Persepolis and her activism.

I have been called a liar and a spy. I have learned in life not to be scared she said. It is not that you do not feel fear you feel the fear but then you decide whether you care about it or not.

It is not that I am fearless or careless but there are kids in my country who are being shot and they are 17 years old while I have lived for more than half a century.

We artists must be humble but doing nothing is worse being indifferent is worse she said. I do not think what I am doing is huge or immense but I have a voice I have a face and I am known in France I am just doing what I have to do.

Satrapi told the BBC in 2024 if you take the art and culture out from any society this society falls down.

Her other film credits included 2014 horror comedy The Voices starring Ryan Reynolds as a factory worker with schizophrenia whose hallucinations drive him to commit murder.

She also directed Radioactive (2019) a biopic of the pioneering Polish-French physicist and chemist Marie Curie starring Rosamund Pike as well as Poulet aux Prunes (2011) and La Bande des Jotas (2012). Her other novels include Embroiderie and Woman Life Freedom.

They noted through this deeply personal and powerful film she gave audiences a story of identity freedom exile and resistance that continues to resonate across the world.

Satrapi's husband a Swedish producer actor and screenwriter died last year and she recently published a series of heartfelt Instagram posts saying For I Lost the love of my life.