French singer Johnny Hallyday dies at 74 after battle with cancer

"For more than 50 years, he was a vibrant icon," President Emmanuel Macron's office said in a statement.Hallyday sold more than 100 million records and his gravelly voice and cowboy swagger won him an army of followers in France and elsewhere in the French-speaking world."Johnny Hallyday has left us," the singer's wife, Laeticia, said in a statement to Agence France Presse. "I write these words without believing them. But yet, it's true. My man is no longer with us."An agent for Hallyday did not immediately return a call or email seeking comment.Hallyday, who issued his first recording in 1959, had been preparing a new album and stage tour when news of his treatment for respiratory difficulties in a Paris hospital was announced last month.