They were 30 years old, with dreams in their heads and the ambition to heal the world.

In the whirlwind that follows the student movement of May 1968 in France, a small band of doctors who have just graduated from their university discover the horrors of the civil war in Biafra.

“It was a shock,” says Bernard Kouchner.

“The wounded arrived in our hospital in the evening when the bombing stopped.

We operated in assembly line at night, sorting out those we could save and those who were going to die.

I never forgot… ”

Médecins sans frontières (MSF) was born in 1971 from this ordeal and from the will of a handful of young idealists like him, who decided to come to the aid of vulnerable populations everywhere on the planet.

They invent the humanitarian emergency.

Their epic has since been written according to earthquakes, famines, epidemics or conflicts that disfigure the planet.

"From a dream, we made an epic", marvels at 83 years old Xavier Emmanuelli, one of the great alumni of the NGO.

“I saw a tiny bunch of guys who were a little fucked up but awesome turn into something recognized around the world.

"

1971: A dream that begins with a nightmare

In 1968, fighting raged in Biafra between the secessionist rebels of this Nigerian province and the government army. The bombs kill civilians, the blockade of the authorities starves them. In Paris, a few doctors responded to a call for help from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Among them, Bernard Kouchner, former head of the Union of Communist Students, and Max Récamier, a Third World Catholic.

There, they are plunged into hell of fighting and a famine that kills men, women and children by the hundreds of thousands. "Children were dying en masse because the army blocked all supplies," recalls Dr Kouchner, 81. “Denouncing this situation was our duty as doctors. With his colleague Récamier, the former minister decides to tear up the contract of silence signed with the ICRC and expose the reality of the conflict. "Biafra: two doctors testify", headlines the French daily Le

Monde

in November 1968.

The international press is mobilizing and images of black children dying of hunger invade the small screens.

Healing and witnessing: modern humanitarian aid was born.

MSF was created three years later, in December 1971. "We found the name one night of creation when we were smoking and drinking," recalls Xavier Emmanuelli, then a doctor in the merchant navy.

“I said 'Doctors absolutely must be in it'.

And then we added without borders.

Because we were border crossers.

"

Difficult beginnings

Due to a lack of resources, the young NGO first serves as a reservoir of goodwill.

An advertising campaign in 1977 established his name.

"We grew up with the media and television," sums up Xavier Emmanuelli.

But on the ground, the first missions rhyme with galleys.

When he arrived full of enthusiasm in Thailand in 1975 in the camps for victims of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime, the young Dr Claude Malhuret was quickly disillusioned.

" It was terrible.

We had nothing ”.

He has to take care of everything.

To collect material, to set up the camp, to have medicine, even to eat.

“When I returned to Paris, I emptied my bag.

I treated them as assassins, send us on a mission like that, with nothing… ”, says the 71-year-old senator.

“It was excessive, but it shook everyone.

We could not continue to tinker.

"

1979: "a sad power struggle"

The rag has been burning at the top of MSF for quite some time now. The “Biafrais” wish to remain a small team of friends in “commando” mode and cling to the “new ones”, determined to grow. The "boat for Vietnam" in 1979 will annoy them for life. Then president of MSF, Bernard Kouchner mobilized all intellectual Paris - the philosophers Raymond Aron and Jean-Paul Sartre in the lead - to charter a boat responsible for recovering the refugees in the China Sea who were fleeing the Communist dictatorship of Hanoi.

The “new ones” of MSF are annoyed by this social activism and, during a GA, put it in the minority. Bernard Kouchner slams the door and sets out to create Médecins du Monde (MDM). Four decades later, the scars of the “schism” are still bleeding. "A sad power struggle", still rages the former Minister of Foreign Affairs (2007-2010). “I was very angry with them. "

"He had all the nerve and especially want to become someone", the claw Xavier Emmanuelli, former Secretary of State for humanitarian action.

“He was useful to us at the beginning.

The little prince of the media.

But MSF, Kouchner style, it had become bullshit.

"They, the old ones, left on the spot to sound the alarm, hoping that the others would follow", also notes Rony Brauman, at the time young trendy doctor "Mao" of the NGO.

“We, the young generation, wanted serious action, resources and results.

"

The era of professionalization

“To grow we needed money. I went to the United States to learn fundraising, ”recalls Claude Malhuret. “As we were the first to do so in France, we won the day. Rich in the independence that this private funding affords it, MSF no longer hesitates to testify. “Their model was developed against the principle of respect for the sovereignty of States defended by the ICRC”, analyzes lawyer Philippe Ryfman, a specialist in humanitarian aid, “they speak out to mobilize public opinion and denounce the abuses ”.

In the name of human rights, the repentant “gauchos” of MSF denounce the exactions of the communist regimes in Cambodia.

Their clandestine missions to the populations of Afghanistan and to the rebels at war against the Soviet occupier gave the “French Doctors” a worldwide reputation.

"We were the only ones to see the effects of the war," pleads Juliette Fournot, the NGO's chief Afghan mission officer until 1989. Every day, they amputate children, treat farmers burned with napalm.

“Witnessing was very important, even today the Afghans remember us.

"

Should he be silent or speak?

In 1985, it was in Ethiopia that the NGO threw a stone in the pond.

“Our food distribution centers had become a trap,” recalls Dr Brigitte Vasset, “they were used by the authorities to secure the refugees in order to forcibly transfer them to the south and depopulate the rebel areas”.

Should he be silent or speak?

In front of the press, Rony Brauman decides to denounce the Addis Ababa government.

MSF is expelled.

“Aid had become an instrument in the hands of a criminal regime in which we did not want to be complicit,” he explains today.

“But saying that the money we sent to the hungry was used to kill them (…) has earned us a lot of criticism.

"

Point out all the humanitarian recovery

At the risk of appearing arrogant, MSF continues to make its voice heard and to point the finger at all humanitarian aid recoveries. After the first Gulf War, the Iraqi Kurds were crushed by Saddam Hussein's regime. MSF comes to their aid and cries out for massacre. In 1991, the UN Security Council authorized a Western military operation to help the displaced and protect them from their government. A first.

Then Secretary of State, Bernard Kouchner welcomes the beginnings of a "right of humanitarian interference".

MSF sets itself apart by criticizing the mix of genres between humanitarian workers and the military.

The controversy continued a year later in Somalia, beset by civil war and famine.

Under UN mandate, American troops and peacekeepers land in Mogadishu to ensure the security of food distributions.

Bernard Kouchner takes part in it, bag of rice on his shoulder.

Rony Brauman mocks him and then underlines the “trap” of an operation where soldiers “kill under the banner of humanitarianism”.

When MSF calls for arms

In 1992 to put an end to the abuses of the Bosnian Serb militiamen. And two years later, to put an end to the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda. When he arrived in Kigali in April 1994, Jean-Hervé Bradol was quickly overwhelmed by the scale of the massacres. “I accompanied the Rwandan Red Cross convoys which brought back the wounded (…) The Tutsi were finished at the militia roadblocks. We managed to negotiate to get women and children through, as long as we left very early in the morning when the militiamen were still asleep and stoned. "

“It all happened very quickly in Kigali,” he continues.

“We ended up buying advertising space in Le Monde to say that we cannot stop a genocide with doctors and that we need an international military intervention.

We had never done that.

The denunciation of the situation in the Rwandan refugee camps in neighboring Zaire, followed by the exactions by the new masters of Kigali, until 1997 earned MSF criticism from the UN and other NGOs.

The consecration

In 1999, the Nobel Peace Prize rewards "an NGO (which) reaches out across borders, conflicts and political chaos".

Its prize is used to finance a campaign for access to treatment for tropical diseases or AIDS, one of its new fields of action.

Today, the small association has grown into a giant.

Under the umbrella of MSF-International, the 25 national sections employ 61,000 people, including 41,000 deployed in the field of around 100 operations in nearly 75 countries.

With an annual global budget of 1.6 billion euros - 99% of which comes from private donations - MSF acts on all fronts.

From the fight against the Ebola virus in Africa to helping those displaced by the civil war in Yemen, including the rescue of migrants in the Mediterranean and the fight against AIDS in Malaysia.

"Although a private organization, MSF has become the undisputed number 1 in medical emergencies in the world," notes Philippe Ryfman.

The word of the NGO still detonates

As in 2004, when MSF refuses to join an international campaign which, according to it outrageously, denounces the “genocide” of the populations of the Sudanese province of Darfur displaced by the civil war. Or in 2005, when she quickly suspended her fundraising for the survivors of the tsunami that leached Southeast Asia, believing that the emergency had passed. “They reacted as emergency responders. But there were still plenty of things to do on the spot, the general public did not understand them ”, flays Benoît Miribel, ex-director of Action Against Hunger (ACF).

The growth of the NGO, however, raises concerns, even within its own ranks.

"We have become a big bureaucratic machine, with support departments which put pressure on people in the field to have reports and Excel tables," regrets the president of the France section, Mego Terzian.

The Franco-Lebanese make no secret of regretting the rusticity of his first missions.

“We knew what we had more or less in the budget and we managed.

Today, the slightest request for cash must be signed all over the world… ”

The globalization of the movement also weighs

"I don't see myself in the international side of MSF," grumbles Rony Brauman, analyst and still a member of the NGO at almost 71 years old. Nostalgic for the “village side of Asterix” in his France section, he regrets “his diminishing weight”. "MSF France is no longer entirely in control of its decisions", replies Brigitte Vasset, "but it is a necessary evil because it has given us enormous resources". "MSF has innovated a lot but it has become institutionalized and lives a little withdrawn into itself", pin Jean-Christophe Rufin, who was its vice-president.

"Thanks to its own funds, the NGO stands out when the others have become reporting offices for the European Union which finances them", analyzes the writer-doctor.

But “times have changed.

Priorities too.

Humanitarian aid is dominated today by internal emergencies, terrorism, migrants, poverty… ”

What future for MSF?

The NGO is holding its 50th anniversary general assembly from June 10 to 13. At the time of this anniversary, humanitarian practices are changing. The demand for aid continues to grow, but access to populations continues to be negotiated hard with the authorities and the safety of personnel is becoming essential in an era of jihadist terrorism. “More and more countries are able to organize large-scale relief efforts in the event of natural disasters,” notes Mego Terzian. “Will MSF remain useful? Perhaps we will evolve into a foundation that will support aboriginal organizations… ”

In the field in any case, the flame of vocations is still burning. Barely completed her boarding school, Fanny Taudière, 29, landed in March in southern Madagascar in the grip of a dantesque famine. “Here, I feel useful,” confides the young doctor from her Amboasary camp. “It gives meaning, intensity to life. There are incredible encounters, an adventure every day, even if some days nothing is easy. "

Joining MSF was obvious to her.

“They go where others don't, they stay when everyone else leaves.

And then they are free to act and speak.

Fifty years later, a single observation unites the enemy brothers of Médecins sans frontières: that of its success.

“It was a great invention and it didn't go too badly,” says Bernard Kouchner.

"MSF has somewhat damaged its poetry but continues to inspire dreams", Xavier Emmanuelli agrees, "this is the most important".

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