A few months ago we released two pairs of silk socks, one of which is called Simone , in homage to Simone Veil, this great lady who knew how to change the lives of women. On this occasion, let's retrace the steps of this politician with an exceptional destiny.
Simone Veil, a figure of courage
Simone Veil was born on July 13, 1927 , into a Jewish family . When the war broke out , she and her siblings were sent to live with their family near Toulouse . They returned home to Nice shortly after, and Simone and her family gradually experienced the segregation of anti-Jewish laws . In March 1944 , while Simone was going with a friend to join the girls in her class to celebrate the end of the baccalaureate exams, she was stopped in the street in the city center of Nice by two Germans in civilian clothes who noticed the falsification of her identity card and arrested her .
Simone, her mother Yvonne, her brother Jean and her sister Madeleine passed through the Drancy camp . On April 13, 1944 , two weeks after their arrest, Simone was transported from Drancy to Auschwitz-Birkenau. There, a prisoner who spoke French advised her to say she was 18 years old , to pass the selection and avoid extermination . A former prostitute who had become a kapo saved her life by moving her to an annex of Auschwitz, telling her: "You are too beautiful to die." Simone and her two sisters were the only survivors of the family , their father, mother and brother having not returned from the camps.
Upon her return to France, Simone was ready to talk about the horror she experienced in the concentration camps, but no one seemed to want to hear her . At the same time, she learned that she had passed her baccalaureate , which she had taken the day before her arrest . She subsequently enrolled at the Faculty of Law in Paris and at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, where she met her future husband Antoine Veil during a trip. To the great astonishment of her loved ones, she did not hesitate to return to Germany to follow Antoine. In 1952 , she lost her sister Madeleine in a road accident, leaving her in deep sadness , her sister being the only person with whom she could share the experience of deportation .
Simone Veil, the politician
After graduating , she successfully passed the competitive examination for the judiciary and held a senior civil service position in the Ministry of Justice. After the election of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing , she was appointed Minister of Health in the Jacques Chirac government, a position she would also retain under the Raymond Barre governments. She was the second woman to become a minister after Germaine Poinso-Chapuis in 1947 .
It is from this position that she occupies that she will change the condition of women . Responsible for presenting the bill on abortion to Parliament, she will be confronted with insults, threats and pressure from the extreme right and the right. Finally, her text will be adopted in the National Assembly then in the Senate , giving birth to the Veil Law which decriminalizes abortion in France . She nevertheless explains that she opposes the trivialization of this act which "will always remain a tragedy".
Simone Veil also passed the French anti-smoking law , which restricted advertising and introduced the first smoking bans in certain places .
Simone, a symbol
Gradually withdrawing from public life following the death of her husband and sister, she would also die in 2017. From then on, a petition was launched to have her entered into the Pantheon , and which would be supported by politicians of all stripes . However, although touched, Simone Veil's grandchildren believe that their grandparents would not be happy to be separated after so much time together.
A national tribute takes place on July 5 at Les Invalides where military honors were paid to him in the presence of the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron . Following this tribute, it was announced that, finally, the Veil couple would enter the Pantheon together and rest alongside Jean Moulin, André Malraux, René Cassin and Jean Monnet .
We hope we were able to teach you some things about Simone Veil!
