Gisèle Halimi (born Zeiza Gisèle Élise Taïeb; 27 July 1927 – 28 July 2020) was a Tunisian-French lawyer, politician, essayist and feminist activist.

Biography

Zeiza Gisèle Élise Taïeb was born in La Goulette, Tunisia, on 27 July 1927 to a modest, practicing Jewish Berber family. Her father, Edouard Taïeb, began as a courier in a law office before becoming a notary clerk, then a legal expert. He was naturalized as a French citizen in 1928. Her mother, Fortunée "Fritna" Mettoudi, conformed to society's expectations of traditional womanhood such that Gisèle describes her as the reason for her own early feminist engagement. When Gisèle was born, her parents hid her birth for three weeks, as, at the time, giving birth to a daughter was perceived as a curse. At 12 years old, she refuses to serve her brothers and goes on a hunger strike to protest gender roles enforced by her family. At 15, she refuses to marry a rich oil merchant much older than her. Gisèle was educated at a French lycée in Tunis, and then attended the University of Paris, graduating in law and philosophy. She is the mother of three sons: Serge, a journalist, and Jean-Yves, a lawyer, were born from her first marriage with Paul Halimi. Her youngest son, Emmanuel Faux, born from a second marriage with Claude Faux, was a journalist. She died the day following her 93rd birthday, on 28 July 2020.

Career

In 1948, Halimi qualified as a lawyer and, after eight years at the Tunis bar, moved to practise at the Paris bar in 1956. She acted as a counsel for the Algerian National Liberation Front, most notably for the activist Djamila Boupacha in 1960, who had been raped and tortured by French soldiers, and wrote a book in 1961 (with an introduction by Simone de Beauvoir) to plead her case. She also defended Basque individuals accused of crimes committed during the conflict in Basque Country, and was counsel in many cases related to women's issues, such as the 1972 Bobigny abortion trial (of a 17-year-old accused of procuring an abortion after having been raped), which attracted national attention. In 1967, she chaired the Russell Tribunal, which was initiated by Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre to investigate and evaluate American military action in Vietnam. In 1971, she founded the feminist group Choisir to protect the women who had signed the Manifesto of the 343 admitting to having illegal abortions, of which she was one. In 1972, Choisir formed itself into a clearly reformist body, and the campaign greatly influenced the passing of the law allowing contraception and abortion carried through by Simone Veil in 1974. In 1981, she was elected to the French National Assembly, as an independent Socialist, and was Deputy for Isère until 1984. Between 1985 and 1987 she was a French legate to UNESCO. In 1998, she was a founding member of ATTAC.

Honors

Honorary member of the Order of Lawyers of Mexico in 1982. Personality of the Year Award from the Grand Jury of the International Distinction in 1983. Minerva Award from the Club delle Donne, in the "Field of Politics and Social Engagement" section (Rome, October 1985). Medal of the Paris Bar Association for fifty years of his career (April 2003).

Works

Footnotes