The Presidency of the Republic announced on Thursday, March 2, that a tribute ceremony to lawyer Gisèle Halimi, who died in 2020 at the age of 93, will be organized on the occasion of International Human Rights Day. women. Emmanuel Macron will be present, Tuesday, March 8, at the Paris courthouse, more than two years after announcing for the first time, without success, the holding of a tribute to this figure of 20th century feminism, great defender of the right to abortion and the recognition of rape as a crime in the 1970s.
In 2020, the calendar for a first ceremony was disrupted by the trip of the Head of State to Lebanon, shortly after the explosion in the port of Beirut. Since then, a gesture of recognition from France to Gisèle Halimi has been requested several times from elected officials and part of her family.
His entry into the Pantheon, particularly desired by feminist associations, encountered reluctance from Emmanuel Macron, despite the call to this effect from seventy-six majority parliamentarians in November. One of the reasons could be the position taken by the lawyer on the war in Algeria and her defense of militants of the National Liberation Front (FLN), while the President, since coming to power, has pursued a policy of reconciliation of memories on this subject.
Lawyer, politician and writer, Gisèle Halimi made her life a fight for women’s rights, marked by a resounding trial in 1972. She then defended, before the criminal court of Bobigny, in the Paris region, Marie-Claire Chevalier, minor accused of having had an abortion after being the victim of a rape. She obtained the release of the young woman and managed to mobilize public opinion, paving the way for the decriminalization of abortion, at the beginning of 1975. Elected deputy in 1981, she continued the fight in the Assembly, this time for reimbursement of voluntary termination of pregnancy, finally voted in 1982.
