Even after retiring from politics Veil remained active in French society. In 2008, Veil was elected to the Académie Francaise, being only the sixth woman in the institution’s almost 500 year old history to receive such an honour, as well as one of the few politicians to ever be invited to join the “immortal forty.”
Until the end of her life Veil continued to break barriers, by insisting that if she’d be given the honour to be buried in the Panthéon, an honour bestowed upon only the most esteemed French citizens (Voltaire and Marie Curie among others), she would only accept if her husband could be buried next to her. A request which president Emmanuel Macron granted when she passed away in 2017.