Eloîse Bertil 08h00, March 03, 2023

Becoming the fifth woman in the Pantheon in 2018, subject in particular of the biopic "Simone, the journey of the century" by Olivier Dahan at the cinema in 2022, Simone Veil, who died in 2017, has not left the news.

With a life as full as his, and above all such a heroic destiny, it is sometimes difficult to determine what is most important to remember from his portrait.

Would you like to know what were his major achievements and the main stages of his career?

Taken from the series "Simone Veil, her fight for justice" written by historian Virginie Girod for the podcast "At the Heart of History", here are the four essential facts to know about the French icon that is Simone Veil , an essential figure in the history of the 20th century.

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Info n°1: She survived the Auschwitz camp

Simone Veil grew up in a non-practicing Jewish family.

Among the Jacobs, there are no religious rites or prayer books;

the only valid religion is humanism.

Under the Occupation in 1940, the Vichy regime passed a series of discriminatory laws that placed Jews on the margins of society.

After these first measures of repression, the Nazis launched a "hunt for Jews" in 1943, and on March 30, 1944, the members of the Jacob family were arrested by the Gestapo, the Nazi political police.

While the men are deported to a labor camp, Simone, her sister and her mother are taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Simone Jacob was only 16 at the time, but she lied about her age to escape the crematory ovens that await the youngest as soon as they arrive in the camps.

She will still suffer forced labor destined for exhaustion, lack of food, beatings and humiliations.

Until the day when a Polish camp guard sends her, her mother and her sister to the Bobrek camp to have a better chance of getting out alive.

Only Simone Veil and her sister will come back.  

>> Find out more about his experience of the death camps with episode 1 

Info n°2: She worked in the direction of the Prison Administration

Back in France after the liberation of the camps, Simone Veil obtained her law degree and passed the judicial examination, which had just been opened to women.

She finds herself attached to the Prison Administration, in charge of subjects deemed "feminine" by her colleagues: conditional release, assistance with rehabilitation and education as well as care for prisoners.

For this woman who knew the camps, the overcrowded and dirty French prisons are a shock.

Simone Veil is revolted by the mistreatment suffered by women in particular, who are martyred.

At the end of the 1950s, the magistrate also pleaded in favor of improving the daily lives of Algerians, whom the French state considered to be terrorists and punished with atrocious torture.

From the 1960s,

he was then asked to work on a reform of adoption law.

She then surrounds herself with lawyers, psychologists and adopted children who have become adults, an innovative multidisciplinary working method.

The first woman to be appointed Secretary General of the Superior Council of the Judiciary in 1970, she embarked on a final fight for more equal access to employment.

>> Find out more about her magistrate fights with episode 2

Info n°3: She was Minister of Health, with the right to abortion for combat

In 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was elected President of the Republic.

May 1968 was a turning point in the fight for the emancipation of women, and the new president wanted to modernize French society.

He then appointed five women to his government, including Simone Veil, who became the second woman in history to become a minister.

And as Minister of Health, Simone Veil must carry the project of legalizing the voluntary termination of pregnancy.

Abortion, then considered by a large part of public opinion and the political class as infanticide, is condemned by law in France, except in the case of rape, incest, serious malformation of the fetus or a danger to the health of the mother.

Women are forced to travel to Switzerland or England to have an abortion, unless they undergo an operation in hiding, in unsanitary places where the risks of infection, sterility and death are very high.

On November 26, 1974, Simone Veil therefore presented her bill to a National Assembly composed of 480 men and 9 women.

His historic speech is followed by an intense debate of no less than 25 hours, at the end of which the "Simone Veil law" is adopted. 

>> Find out more about his career as Minister of Health with episode 3

Info n°4: She was the first president of the European Parliament

At 52, Simone Veil's career and commitments make her the ideal candidate to lead the list of the UDF, the center-right party at the time, in the European elections.

His youth shattered by the Holocaust during the Second World War justifies his commitment to a unified Europe.

French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt see in the figure of this woman born into a Jewish, French family and survivor of the camps the new face of Franco-German friendship.

Simone Veil is elected President of the European Parliament.

She is the first woman to hold this position.

In her first speech as President, Simone Veil talks about her desire to work for peace, for freedom and for the well-being of Europeans. 

>> Find out more about the construction of Europe with episode 4 

"Simone Veil, her fight for justice" is a special mini-series of 4 episodes taken from the podcast "At the heart of History" presented by historian Virginie Girod and produced by Europe 1 Studio.

A historical account in 4 chronological parts available on all listening platforms!

>> Read also:

abortion throughout history