A bust of Simone Veil was inaugurated this Tuesday in the gardens of the National Assembly, 48 years after the historic vote on the law that bears her name, which authorized the voluntary interruption of pregnancy (IVG).
The bronze sculpture, symbolically surrounded by roses “Marie Curie”, was installed a few steps from the hemicycle where Simone Veil had defended her text as Minister of Health, in the face of the brutal hostility of her opponents.
“Certainly, she was not a member of the National Assembly, but her voice sounds no less unforgettable” at the Palais Bourbon, said the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, in front of dozens of guests, including the son of the former minister. Pierre-François Veil.
The Veil law that decriminalized abortion, voted in the Assembly on November 29, 1974 and promulgated in January 1975, had sparked a heated debate, “one of the toughest in the Fifth Republic,” Yaël Braun-Pivet stressed.
“This moment in our political and parliamentary history profoundly transformed French society,” he added, calling for vigilance in the face of challenges “to a right that we believed guaranteed” observed in other countries such as the United States or Poland.
A topical discussion last week
It is to protect this right to abortion in France that the National Assembly voted on November 25 to include it in the Constitution. But there is still a long way to go to achieve this, particularly due to the essential approval of the Senate, which rejected a text in this direction in October.
“I am convinced that such a right can and should be enshrined in our Constitution. We did it for the abolition of the death penalty, now irreversible, let’s do it for the free choice of women”, said Yaël Braun-Pivet.
The sculpture installed in the Assembly is the work of the artist Sissy Piana. Funded by the “Foundation for Strasbourg”, it is part of a series of busts that will be placed in places that have marked the life of Simone Veil. Another copy has already been inaugurated at the headquarters of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
Source: BFM TV
