French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Wednesday that he wanted to include voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) in the Constitution, paying tribute to an emblematic French feminist, Gisèle Halimi, who campaigned for women’s rights.
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“The advances resulting from parliamentary debates (…) will, I hope, make it possible to include this freedom in our fundamental text”, he said during a ceremony in Paris, referring to a revision of the Constitution via a bill “in the coming months”.
Emmanuel Macron thus opens the way to a “constitutionalization” of abortion by a vote of the two chambers united in Congress rather than by a referendum.
It is a “victory for feminist associations which have been asking for the constitutionalization of abortion for years”, reacted the Women’s Foundation. It is also “a strong signal for all women in the world”, according to her.
Conversely, the anti-abortion association Alliance Vita denounced such registration which, according to it, would be “the last step towards the trivialization of an act which puts several lives at stake”.
During a national tribute, the French president recalled that Gisèle Halimi, who died on July 28, 2020 at the age of 93, had distinguished herself in the fight for the right to abortion after the Algerian war.
Supporter of the cause of Algerian independence, denouncer of torture, this lawyer remains criticized by those nostalgic for French Algeria.
Before the highest judicial authorities in the country, an ex-president and ministers or former ministers, Emmanuel Macron did not announce the transfer of his remains to the Pantheon in Paris which welcomes the great figures who have marked the History of France.
The study of the file is still “in progress”, assured the Elysée.
One of Gisèle Halimi’s sons, journalist Serge Halimi, boycotted the tribute, deploring that he intervened in full mobilization against an “extremely unfair” pension reform and that his mother would, according to him, have fought.
In 1972, during a resounding trial, Gisèle Halimi notably obtained the release of a minor prosecuted for abortion after being the victim of rape, paving the way for the decriminalization of voluntary termination of pregnancy.
Elected deputy in 1981, she continued this fight in the National Assembly, this time for the reimbursement of abortion, finally voted in 1982.