From student unionism to the government under François Mitterrand, Huguette Bouchardeau, whose death was announced Thursday, led a political career anchored on the left and marked by feminism.
The one who was amused by “the little astonishment that men have towards a successful woman” would become in 1979 the first woman to lead a political organization in France.
Born on June 1, 1935 in Saint-Etienne (Loire) in a modest family, Huguette Bouchardeau was the only child to pursue studies.
She began to be active in student unionism in 1952, at the age of 17, and was elected general secretary of the General Association of Students (AGE) of Lettres de Lyon in 1955.
Becoming an associate professor of philosophy in 1961, she taught at the Honoré d’Urfé high school in Saint-Etienne from 1961 to 1970, then educational sciences at the University of Lyon II from 1970 to 1983 where she spent lecturer.
Very quickly, her career combined political commitment and feminist activism.
She founded one of the first centers for university feminist studies (CLEF), before publishing her first book, “No History, Women” (1977), which denounces the exclusion of women from public life and analyzes the history of feminist struggles.
Huguette Bouchardeau was also designated head of the “women” sector within the national office of the Unified Socialist Party (PSU) from 1975.
Her national career took off when she was appointed national secretary of the PSU from 1979 to 1981, becoming a pioneer in France.
Her style quickly hits the mark, she fully asserts her belonging to the family of the left and places emphasis on social struggles.
– La “vanité” du métier –
Huguette Bouchardeau ran in the 1981 presidential election, but only received 1.10% of the vote, before supporting François Mitterrand in the second round.
On March 22, 1983, she was appointed Secretary of State to the Prime Minister in charge of the Environment and the Living Environment (3rd Pierre Mauroy government), implementing the law of July 12, 1983 relating to the democratization of public inquiries – called the “Bouchardeau law”.
She then took charge of the Ministry of the Environment in July 1984 (Laurent Fabius government).
After three years in power, she told AFP in February 1986 that she remained deeply “militant, feminist and environmentalist”.
The victory of the right in the legislative elections a month later led to the first cohabitation of the Fifth Republic, removing Ms. Bouchardeau and the socialists from the government.
From these years as a professional in politics, she draws “The Ministry of Possibility” (1986) and imagines “Le Déjeuner” (1993) about a prominent politician and a female star of journalism.
Member of Parliament for Doubs (app. PS) between 1986 and 1993, she repeatedly denounced the “vanity” of the profession: “Instead of making the law, we transform ourselves into +VRP+, into lobbyists for our constituency, and to keep our position, we put local interest before national interest”, she laments as she leaves public life.
“For twenty years, my life was so intimately linked to the development of feminist actions that I found myself, in turn, in all the statutes, all the roles with regard to the books which were published on this subject”, she wrote with pride a few years later.
Mayor of the small village of Aigues-Vives (Gard) from 1995 to 2001 and director of her own publishing house, Huguette Bouchardeau ended her life devoting herself to writing, another passion, publishing several biographies of great women in history such as Simone Weil, Elsa Triolet and Simone de Beauvoir.
publié le 22 mai à 07h52, AFP
