Gisèle Halimi

Gisèle Halimi
Gisèle Halimi
	Gisèle Halimi in 2009
Member of the National Assembly; for Isère's 4th constituency
	In office; 21 June 1981 – 9 September 1984
Preceded by	Jacques-Antoine Gau
Succeeded by	Maurice Rival
Personal details
Born	Zeiza Gisèle Élise Taïeb; 27 July 1927; La Goulette, Tunis, French Tunisia
Died	28 July 2020 (aged 93); Paris, France
Nationality	Tunisian; French
Spouse(s)	Paul Halimi (divorced); Claude Faux
Children	3 (including Serge Halimi)
Alma mater	University of Paris; Sciences Po
Profession	Lawyer

Gisèle Halimi (born Zeiza Gisèle Élise Taïeb; 27 July 1927 – 28 July 2020) was a Tunisian-French lawyer, feminist, and essayist.[1]

Biography

Halimi was born in La Goulette, Tunisia, on 27 July 1927 to a Jewish mother and a Berber father. She was educated at a French lycée in Tunis, and then attended the University of Paris, graduating in law and philosophy. Her childhood and the ways in which she blends a Jewish-Muslim identity are discussed in her memoir, Le lait de l'oranger. She was first married to Paul Halimi, and then to Claude Faux.[2] She died the day after her 93th birthday, on 28 July 2020.[3]

Career

In 1948, Halimi qualified as a lawyer and, after eight years at the Tunis bar,[4] moved to practise at the Paris bar in 1956.[4] She acted as a counsel for the Algerian National Liberation Front,[4] most notably for the activist Djamila Boupacha in 1960,[4] who had been raped and tortured by French soldiers,[4] and wrote a book in 1961 (with an introduction by Simone de Beauvoir)[4] to plead her case.[4] 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,[4] such as the 1972 Bobigny abortion trial (of a 17-year-old accused of procuring an abortion after having been raped),[4] 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 (transl. To Choose)[5] to protect the women who had signed the Manifesto of the 343 admitting to having illegal abortions, of which she was one.[4][6] 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,[4] as an independent Socialist, and was Deputy for Isère until 1984. Between 1985 and 1987 she was a French legate to UNESCO.[7]

In 1998, she was a founding member of ATTAC.[8]

Works

Title	English translation	Time of first publication	First edition publisher/publication	Unique identifier	Notes
Djamila Boupacha		1962	Gallimard	ISBN 978-2070205240
Le procès de Burgos	The Burgos Trials	1971		ISBN 978-2070279487
La cause des femmes	The Cause of Women	1973		ISBN 2-246-00028-9
Avortement, une loi en procès	Abortion, a Law on Trial	1973		ISBN 2-246-00028-9
The Right to Choose		1977		ISBN 0-7022-1433-7
Viol, Le procès d'Aix: Choisir la cause des femmes	Rape, the Aix Trial: Choosing the Cause of Women	1978		ISBN 978-2070353989
Le Programme commun des femmes	The Common Women's Program	1978		ISBN 2-246-00572-8
Milk for the Orange Tree		1988		ISBN 0-7043-2738-4
Une embellie perdue	A Lost Beauty	1995		ISBN 2-07-073788-8
La nouvelle cause des femmes	The New Cause of Women	1997		ISBN 2-02-031973-X
Fritna		1999		ISBN 2-259-19134-7
La parité dans la vie politique	Parity in Political Life	1999		ISBN 2-11-004376-8
Avocate irrespectueuse	Disrespectful Counsel	2002		ISBN 2-259-19453-2
Le procès de Bobigny: Choisir la cause des femmes	The Bobigny Trial: Choosing the Cause of Women	2006		ISBN 2-07-077515-1	Preface by Simone de Beauvoir
La Kahina		2006		ISBN 2-259-20314-0
Ne vous résignez jamais	Never Resign Yourself	2009		ISBN 978-2-259-20941-0
Histoire d'une passion	History of a Passion	2011	Plon	ISBN 2-259-21394-4

Footnotes

Lawrence D. Kritzman; Brian J. Reilly; Malcolm DeBevoise (September 2007). The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought. Columbia University Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-231-10790-7. Retrieved 15 January 2011.
"Gisèle Halimi - Sa bio et toute son actualité". www.elle.fr (in French). Retrieved 28 July 2020.
"L'avocate Gisèle Halimi, défenseuse passionnée de la cause des femmes, est morte". Le Monde (in French). 28 July 2020.
"Une vie : Gisèle Halimi". Brut (in French). 28 July 2020. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
Raylene L. Ramsay (2003). French women in politics: writing power, paternal legitimization, and maternal legacies. Berghahn Books. pp. 135–139. ISBN 978-1-57181-081-6. Retrieved 15 January 2011.
Le manifeste des 343 Archived 23 April 2001 at the Wayback Machine
"France". UNESCO. 17 October 2007. Archived from the original on 19 October 2003. Retrieved 15 January 2010.
"ATTAC founding members" (in French). Archived from the original on 12 April 2011. Retrieved 21 May 2012.

References

An unlikely alliance. The Guardian, 12 August 2003. Accessed 2011-01-15.
French Wikipedia entry.