Not to be confused withSimone Weil, a French philosopher.
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Simone Veil (French:[simɔnvɛj]ⓘ;néeJacob; 13 July 1927 – 30 June 2017) was a Frenchmagistrate,Holocaust survivor and politician. Deported as a teenager toAuschwitz-Birkenau and laterBergen-Belsen, she became a prominent advocate for human dignity and European reconciliation. Asminister of health, she championed women’s rights and is best remembered for the landmark 1975 law legalising abortion, known as theVeil Act (French:Loi Veil).
Honoured nationally and internationally, she was elected to theAcadémie Française in 2008, received the grand cross of theLégion d’honneur in 2012, and was awarded numerousdoctorates honoris causa abroad. After her death in 2017, she and her husband, Antoine Veil, were interred at thePanthéon in July 2018 during a state ceremony led by PresidentEmmanuel Macron.[3]
Simone Jacob was born on 13 July 1927 to anatheist Jewish family inNice. Her father André Jacob was an architect who graduated from theBeaux-Arts de Paris and went on to win thePrix de Rome for Architecture.[4] In 1922 he married Yvonne Steinmetz, who had just passed herBaccalauréat and was about to start studyingchemistry. André Jacob insisted that she abandon her studies upon marriage.[5] The family had moved fromParis to Nice in 1924, hoping to benefit from construction projects on theCôte d’Azur.[5] Simone was the youngest of four siblings, Madeleine (nicknamed Milou), born in 1923;Denise, born in 1924 and Jean, born in 1925.[6] Her father's family had come fromLorraine, while her mother’s side came from theRhineland region and fromBelgium.[7]
Simone's family was explicitly Jewish but non-practicing.[8] "Being a member of theJewish community was never a problem. It was proudly claimed by my father, but for cultural reasons, not religious ones", she wrote in herautobiography. "In his eyes, if theJewish people were to remain the chosen people, it was because they were the people of the Book, the people of thinking and writing."[9]
WhenGermany invaded France and theVichy regime came to power in June 1940, the family managed to avoid being deported, as Nice had been included in theItalian occupation zone.[10] Asked not to come to school by its superintendent, Simone Jacob had to study at home. As the round-up of Jews intensified, the family split up and lived with different friends under false identities. Denise left forLyon to join the resistance, while 16-year-old Simone continued studying and passed her baccalauréat exam under her real name in March 1944.[11] The next day she was arrested by theGestapo on her way out to meet friends and celebrate the end of her secondary education.[11] The rest of her family was also arrested on that day.
On 7 April 1944, Simone, her mother, and her sisters were sent to the transit camp ofDrancy, then on 13 April were deported toAuschwitz in Convoy 71.[4] Simone’s brother and father were deported to the Baltic states in Convoy 73, never to be seen again, and thus assumed to have been murdered. Her sister Denise was deported to theRavensbrück concentration camp, which she survived, and after the end of World War II in Europe was reunited with Simone.
On 15 April 1944, Simone arrived at Auschwitz. She later wrote that she managed to avoid the gas chamber by lying about her age and was registered for the labour camp.[12] In January 1945, Simone, along with her mother and sister, was sent on a march toBergen-Belsen concentration camp, where her mother died oftyphus. Madeleine also fell ill but, like Simone, was saved when the camp was liberated on 15 April 1945.[13]
After graduating from theFaculty of Law of Paris with a law degree, Veil spent several years practising law. In 1954, she passed the national examination to become a magistrate.[17][18] She entered the National Penitentiary Administration under theMinistry of Justice, where she held a senior position and was responsible for judicial affairs.[19] She improved women's prison conditions and the treatment of incarcerated women.[19] In 1964, she left to become the director ofcivil affairs, where she improved French women's general rights and status.[17] She successfully achieved the right to dual parental control of family legal matters and adoptive rights for women.[17] In 1970, she became secretary general of theSupreme Magistracy Council [fr].[19]
From 1974 to 1979, Veil was aMinister of Health in the governments ofprime ministersJacques Chirac andRaymond Barre: from 28 May 1974 to 29 March 1977, Minister of Health; from 29 March 1977 to 3 April 1978, Minister of Health and Social Security; and from 3 April 1978 to 4 July 1979, Minister of Health and Family.
She pushed forward two notable laws. The first, passed on 4 December 1974, facilitated access tocontraception such as thecombined oral contraceptive pill, which was legalized in 1967.
The second, passed on 17 January 1975, legalizedabortion in France – this was her hardest-fought political initiative and the one for which she is best known. The abortion debate was particularly difficult for her because those in favour of keeping abortion illegal launched aggressive personal attacks against Veil and her family.[17] Since the passing of the law, many have paid tribute to Veil and thanked her for her courageous and determined fight.[17][20]
In 1976, Veil also helped to introduce a ban on smoking in certain public places and worked on the problem of medically underserved rural areas.[21]
In 1981, Veil won the prestigiousCharlemagne Prize, an award given to honour the contributions made by individuals to advancing the unity of Europe.[24]
After the end of her term as President in 1982, she remained a member of the European Parliament; she was re-elected for the last time in the1989 election, stepping down in 1993.[22] She was Chair of theEuropean Liberal Democrat and Reform Party until 1989.[22]
From 31 March 1993 to 16 May 1995, Veil was again a member of the cabinet, serving asMinister of State andMinister of Health,Social Affairs and the city in the government of Prime MinisterÉdouard Balladur.[25] In the mid-1990s, she worked to help the disabled,HIV-positive patients, and mothers of young children.[21]
In 1998, she was appointed to theConstitutional Council of France. In 2005, she put herself briefly on leave from the council in order to campaign in favour of theTreaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. This action was criticized because it seemed to contradict the legal provisions that members of the council should keep a distance from partisan politics: the independence and impartiality of the council would be jeopardized, critics said, if members could put themselves "on leave" in order to campaign for a project.[26] In response, Veil said that she, the president of theConstitutional Council and colleagues had deliberated on the issue beforehand and they had given her permission to take her leave without having to resign. Being a staunch supporter of the European project, she believed others should not "ignore the historical dimension ofEuropean integration".[26]
The coffins of Simone and Antoine Veil under the dome of the Panthéon on 1 July 2018Rue Soufflot on the day of the Panthéon ceremonyThe tombs of Simone and Antoine Veil in the crypt of the Panthéon
In 2003, she was elected to the Board of Directors of theInternational Criminal Court's Trust Fund for Victims. In 2007, Simone Veil supported presidential candidateNicolas Sarkozy. She was by his side on the day after he received 31 per cent of the vote in the first round of the presidential elections that year.[27]
In 2008, Simone Veil became the sixth woman to be elected to theAcadémie française. She joined the Academy's forty "immortals", as the members are informally known, occupying the13th seat, once the seat of literary figureJean Racine. Her induction address was given in March 2010 byJean d'Ormesson. On her sword, given to her as to every other immortal, are engraved her Auschwitz number (number 78651), the motto of the French Republic (liberté, égalité, fraternité) and the motto of the European Union, Unity in diversity (Unis dans la diversité).[28]
Veil died at her home on 30 June 2017, at age 89.[29] Her son Jean said at her public ceremony on 5 July, "I forgive you for having poured water over my head", in reference to an event where she had emptied a carafe of water over his head in disgust at what she considered to be hismisogynist remarks.[21]
On 5 July 2017, Veil was honoured with a national ceremony and military honours in the courtyard ofles Invalides,[30] after which she was interred next to her husband, who died in 2013, atMontparnasse Cemetery.[31] The ceremony at les Invalides was attended byPresident Macron, Holocaust survivors, politicians and dignitaries. In his speech during the ceremony, President Macron announced the decision to rebury Veil and her husband in thePanthéon,[32] which was done on1 July 2018.[33]
She and her husband lived in an apartment on the second floor of 11,Place Vauban [fr] in the7th arrondissement of Paris, on therive gauche. In 1983 she instigated the Club Vauban, a circle of politicians and intellectuals motivated to abolish political barriers betweenleft andright.
In 2008 she won theCharles V Prize, awarded by the Fundación Academia Europea de Yuste in honour of "her acknowledged merits in the struggle for the advancement of women's equality."[38]
She was a jury member for the Conflict Prevention Prize awarded every year by theFondation Chirac.[41]
In 2018 she was the subject of a€2 commemorative coin, whose design included her deportation registration number, theEuropean Parliament and the year "1975" signifying the legalisation of abortion.[42]
In 2018, the government of France established a prize in memory of Veil to honour people who fight for women's causes.[52] The intent is to draw attention to efforts to promote women's autonomy, education, participation in leadership roles, and freedom from violence and discrimination.[52] The prize is awarded each year on 8 March,International Women's Day, with €100,000 to support work in the winner's area of concern. On 8 March 2019, the first Simone Veil Prize was awarded toAissa Doumara Ngatansou, co-founder of the Association for the Elimination of Violence against Women (ALVF) in Cameroon.[52][53]
^Jacquemart, Claude; Garat, Jean-Baptiste (2 July 2017). "Simone Veil, survivante et immortelle" [Simone Veil, survivor and immortal].Le Figaro (in French). p. 4.
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