Femmes solidaires

The origins of the association date back to around 1941, in the women's committees of the French Resistance, born of the grassroots Resistance committees created by Danielle Casanova.[1] These women's committees gradually took shape at local levels, then at the regional and inter-regional level. They were regrouped within the Union des femmes françaises in the zone occupée and the Union des femmes de France in the zone libre. The leaders were Josette Dumeix, then Maria Rabaté for the northern zone, after the arrest of Danielle Casanova and Marcelle Barjonet.[2] and Simone Bertrand[3] in the zone libre.[4] The UFF was consolidated around 1943 within the communist resistance movement during the occupation of France by Nazi Germany. This organization took a long time to establish itself, mainly due to arrests of its members by the Nazis or by the Vichy regime.[1]

In April 1944, the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans asked the UFF for help in joining its auxiliary services as an intelligence unit, as a liaison or stewardship. A steering committee composed of Yvonne Dumont, Françoise Leclercq, Irène Joliot-Curie, and Eugénie Cotton met on June 11 to evaluate the proposal. The UFF became a nationwide movement, which then applied to the National Council of the Resistance for recognition.[1]

Before liberation, all of the individual committees had been unified by the French Communist Party (PCF)under the name of the Union of French Women for the northern Zone (Union des femmes françaises pour la Zone nord) and Union of French Women for the southern Zone (Union des femmes françaises pour la Zone nord et d'Union des femmes de France de la Zone sud).

After liberation, they merged and were formally registered under the name "Union des femmes françaises", becoming one of the main organizations of the PCF, and became official at a congress on 21 December 1944.[5]

UFF-chartered supply truck, December 1947[6]

Under the leadership of Jeannette Vermeersch and Claudine Chomat after the Liberation and during the Cold War years, the organization was a "Communist mass-movement organization",[7] notably due to their magazine, Femmes françaises.[8]

Femmes solidaires is a national feminist movement of popular education made up of more than 190 local associations, established throughout France and its overseas departments.

The association's founding values are based on secularism, social diversity fr:mixité sociale, equal rights for women, peace, and freedom. It currently has almost 30,000 members and publishes the monthly Clara Magazine. Its social objectives were to combat all forms of discrimination and domination, particularly in the fields of employment rights, equality between men and women in the workplace, parity, and the fight against violence against women.

Femmes solidaires has special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. The association is also involved in international solidarity campaigns and works with numerous feminist organizations in different countries around the world.

Front page of Femmes françaises, weekly magazine for women

• Femmes françaises (6 June 1947). "Les paysans envoient du ravitaillement pour les travailleurs en lutte et leurs familles" [Farmers send supplies to workers and their families in the struggle]. Gallica (in French). France d'abord.

• BNF (2 May 2023) [31 May 1988]. "Union des femmes françaises | BnF Catalogue générale - Bibliothèque nationale de France". BNF. FRBNF12076018.

• Girault, Jacques; Loiseau, Dominique (2023). "BERTRAND Simone, Séraphine". maitron.fr. Retrieved 21 September 2022..

• Guéraiche, William (1999). Les femmes et la République: essai sur la répartition du pouvoir de 1943 à 1979 (in French). Editions de l'Atelier. ISBN 978-2-7082-3468-0. Retrieved 21 September 2022.

• Loiseau, Dominique (2018). "L'Union des femmes françaises pendant les Trente Glorieuses: entre 'maternalisme', droit des femmes et communisme" [The French Women's Union during the Trente Glorieuses: between 'maternalism', women's rights and communism]. Le Mouvement Social (in French). 4 (265).

• Loiseau, Dominique; Pennetier, Claude (2023). "BARJONET Marcelle, épouse HURAUX". maitron.fr (in French). Retrieved 21 September 2022.

• Naquet, Emmanuel Naquet (2004). "Ligues et associations". In Becker, Jean-Jacques; Candar, Gilles (dir.) (eds.). Histoire des gauches en France [History of the left-wing parties in France]. Vol. 2. Paris: La Découverte.

• Sapiro, Gisèle [in French] (2004). "Brassard de l'Union des femmes françaises - Île-de-France". museedelaresistanceenligne.org. Retrieved 21 September 2022.

• Marie Cerati, Le club des citoyennes républicaines révolutionnaires, Paris, éd. sociales, 1966
• Carolyn Eichner, Surmounting the Barricades: Women in the Paris Commune, Indiana University Press, 2004
• Eric Fassin, Clarisse Fabre, Liberté, égalité, sexualités, Belfond 2003.
• Lisa Greenwald, Daughters of 1968: Redefining French Feminism and the Women's Liberation Movement (Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2018)
• M. Jaspard, Enquête sur les violences faites aux femmes, La documentation française, 2002.*Marc de Villiers, Histoire des clubs de femmes et des légions d’Amazones (1793-1848-1871), Paris, Plon-Nourrit et cie, 1910

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