Gisèle Halimi

Gisèle Halimi (born Zeiza Gisèle Élise Taïeb, Template:Langx; 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 practicing Jewish Berber family. Her father, Edouard Taïeb, began as a courier in a law office before becoming a notary clerk and 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, which Halimi cited as the reason for her own early feminist engagement. When Gisèle was born, her parents hid her birth for three weeks because at that time giving birth to a daughter was perceived as a curse. At 12 years old, she refused to wait on her brothers and went on a hunger strike to protest the gender roles enforced by her family. At 15, she refused to marry a rich oil merchant much older than herself.

She was educated at a French lycée in Tunis, then attended the University of Paris, graduating in law and philosophy. She had three sons: Serge, a journalist, and Jean-Yves, a lawyer, from her first marriage to Paul Halimi, and Emmanuel Faux, a journalist, from her second marriage to Claude Faux. She died the day following her 93rd birthday, on July 28, 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, who had been raped and tortured by French soldiers, writing 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. Halimi served as counsel in many cases related to women's issues, such as the 1972 Bobigny abortion trial (of a 17-year-old girl, Marie-Claire Chevalier, accused of procuring an illegal abortion after having been raped), which attracted national attention.

In 1971, she founded the feminist group Choisir (To Choose) to protect the women who had signed the Manifesto of the 343 admitting to having had illegal abortions, of whom she was one.

In 1981, Halimi was elected to the French National Assembly, as an independent Socialist and served as 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 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 (April 2003).

Works

Title	English translation	Time of first publication	First edition publisher/publication	Unique identifier	Notes
Djamila Boupacha		1962	Gallimard	Template:ISBN
Le procès de Burgos	The Burgos Trials	1971		Template:ISBN
La cause des femmes	The Cause of Women	1973		Template:ISBN
Avortement, une loi en procès	Abortion, a Law on Trial	1973		Template:ISBN
The Right to Choose		1977		Template:ISBN
Viol, Le procès d'Aix: Choisir la cause des femmes	Rape, the Aix Trial: Choosing the Cause of Women	1978		Template:ISBN
Le Programme commun des femmes	The Common Women's Program	1978		Template:ISBN
le Lait de l'Oranger	Milk for the Orange Tree	1988		Template:ISBN
Une embellie perdue	A Lost Beauty	1995		Template:ISBN
La nouvelle cause des femmes	The New Cause of Women	1997		Template:ISBN
Fritna		1999		Template:ISBN
La parité dans la vie politique	Parity in Political Life	1999		Template:ISBN
Avocate irrespectueuse	Disrespectful Counsel	2002		Template:ISBN
Le procès de Bobigny: Choisir la cause des femmes	The Bobigny Trial: Choosing the Cause of Women	2006		Template:ISBN	Preface by Simone de Beauvoir
La Kahina		2006		Template:ISBN
Ne vous résignez jamais	Never Resign Yourself	2009		Template:ISBN
Histoire d'une passion	History of a Passion	2011	Plon	Template:ISBN

References

• An unlikely alliance. The Guardian, 12 August 2003. Accessed 2011-01-15.

Further reading

• General Paul Aussaresses, The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Algeria, 1955-1957. (New York: Enigma Books, 2010) Template:ISBN.
• Natalie Edwards, The Autobiographies of Julia Kristeva, Gisèle Halimi, Assia Djebar and Hélène Cixous : beyond "I" versus "we". (Chicago: Northwestern University, 2005) Template:ISBN.