April 5, 1971, the fervent Gaullist Georges Pompidou is at the Elysee Palace, Michel Delpech sings "Pour un flirt" and workers' strikes in the automobile industry are on the increase.
The weather is fine and dry, the thermometer is near a pleasant 15 ° C but, in the kiosks, 343 women bring the population back to an icy reality.
On the front page of the Nouvel Observateur, no photo, no face, just a title: "The list of 343 French women who have the courage to sign the manifesto
I had an abortion
".
It was fifty years ago, to the day, long before the Veil law which decriminalized the voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion), in January 1975. On this Monday, the anniversary of this manifesto, we found some of these signatories, all astonished that this action has marked history to such an extent.
It was a time when 300,000 clandestine abortions took place each year, when the richest went abroad to do it, the others passed under the cloak the address of a benevolent doctor (or interested in money. ), sometimes that of an "angel maker" who performed the gesture in often deplorable conditions.
Every year, between 40 and 50 women (declared) lost their lives as a result of this process, not to mention those who remained mutilated.
Without forgetting, also, those which, without solution, put an end to their days.
20% of signatories had never aborted
It was a time, finally, when the Women's Liberation Movement (MLF) had just emerged and where an abortion was punishable by six months to two years in prison.
Signing such a platform was therefore not trivial.
About 20% of the signatories had never aborted.
Like Yvette Roudy, Prime Minister of Women's Rights from 1981 to 1986 under the Mitterrand era.
“No, I never had an abortion, but I wanted to show my full support for this initiative,” she says.
On April 5, 1971, these signatories do not yet know it, but they will pass to posterity under the familiar name of "343 sluts", after a caricature of Charlie.
For the best known, the signatures that appear are as diverse as those of the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, the theater woman Ariane Mnouchkine, the writer Françoise Sagan, the lawyer Gisèle Halimi or the actress Catherine Deneuve.
“What we were doing was illegal, we knew it, but we felt protected by these stars.
They were like a shield for us grassroots activists.
However, after the publication of the manifesto, we were still given the number of girlfriends lawyers in the event of a problem, ”recalls anthropologist Véronique Nahoum-Grappe, who joined the MLF from the start.
“I was on the
music
commission
of the movement,” she laughs.
We were in the markets
banging
pots and pans and yelling:
Sign, sign, you have to sign!
We were in the action, in an emergency, things had to move.
The one who is one of these 343 also remembers a "rare moment".
“I said to myself:
What I am doing, by placing my signature, is in agreement with what I think
.
The idea for this manifesto was a smart one and it came at the right time.
"
"I thought that this demand could be accepted by the population"
In charge: Anne Zelensky and Christine Delphy, two of the founders of the MLF (signatories of course), with the help of Simone de Beauvoir.
It is moreover the author of the “Second Sex” who writes, in a few minutes, the text of the manifesto which ends with this sentence: “I declare that I am one of them.
I declare to have aborted.
Just as we demand free access to contraceptives, we demand free abortion.
"
“The MLF was one year old and Anne Zelensky came up with the idea, with which I agreed, that we had to mobilize for the freedom to abort.
Some thought that the theme was too limited and that it was necessary to make the revolution immediately.
I thought that we had to start at the beginning and that this demand could be accepted by the population, ”recalls Christine Delphy, sociologist and former researcher at the CNRS.
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50 years of the 343 manifesto: a signatory recounts this decisive battle for the right to abortion
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How did the project become concrete?
“In a rare mixed meeting, we met two journalists from Nouvel Observateur, Nicole Muchnik and Jean Moreau, who told us:
You should make a manifesto
.
We found the idea very good, says Christine Delphy.
But we must recognize that after the publication, it did not move the masses too much.
This is why I am quite surprised that we are still talking about it.
I'm happy to still be alive to see it celebrated.
"
However, he inspired many others who also helped advance this cause up to the Veil law.
Like that of February 5, 1973, where 331 women and men doctors joined this fight by signing another manifesto published - again - in Le Nouvel Observateur.
They “accuse” each other of having performed clandestine abortions.
Another act of disobedience, vis-à-vis the Order of Physicians this time.
A new battle to extend the deadline for an abortion
These pioneers of feminism continue to follow the news on the subject, in particular the most recent: the bill (passed in first reading) aiming to extend the legal deadline for an abortion from 12 to 14 weeks, emanating from the deputy Albane Gaillot (NI).
But faced with a strategy of parliamentary obstruction from the right (more than 400 amendments tabled), the Socialist group of the National Assembly has decided to withdraw the text and now calls "the government to take its responsibilities".
Every year, between 2,000 and 4,000 women still travel abroad to have an abortion after exceeding the 12-week pregnancy deadline.
Abortion is a fundamental right, a right to dispose of one's body and a right yet to be conquered: better information, easier and non-judgmental access, choice of method, extension in countries where it is prohibited ✊🏼💚 #pick abortion. twitter.com/DqwGAXnzrL
- Family Planning (@leplanning) February 14, 2021
On this anniversary of the Manifesto of 343, Family Planning has therefore decided to launch a sister initiative in favor of extending this deadline: a new manifesto calling on women who have abortions abroad to sign it.
The address where they can do so is also a nod to their august elders: 343@planning-familial.org.