in 1972, the Bobigny trial made history

On October 11, 1972, dozens of women came before the Bobigny court (Seine-Saint-Denis). They lend their support to a 16-year-old young woman, tried for having aborted after a rape. Marie-Claire Chevalier is then defended by the lawyer Gisèle Halimi. During this trial, Jane Birkin or Simone de Beauvoir come to testify, outside or at the bar, to support Marie-Claire and her co-defendants, her mother and three women who helped them.

“It’s a kind of MeToo of the time. We wanted to say, we too had an abortion, judge us”remembers Françoise Picq, historian, author of Liberation of women, forty years of movement. The court eventually acquitted the girl. As the days go by, the trial becomes that of the ban on abortion. “I believe that there are cases where, unfortunately, the woman has no other recourse. If her mother had come to see me, I would have helped her”, affirms at the time Paul Milliez, professor of medicine, which will scandalize the opinion. Demonstrations in favor of abortion regain strength after the judgment.