France paid homage on Sunday to Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor best known for legalizing abortion in the 1970s as she joined the country’s great citizens interred in the Panthéon in Paris, reports Reuters.
Veil, who died aged 89 on June 30 a year ago, was laid to rest with her husband in the crypt of the Panthéon mausoleum alongside other national icons including authors Émile Zola and Victor Hugo and the philosopher Voltaire.
Hundreds of people lined sun-drenched streets in central Paris to watch the cortege carrying the caskets of Simone and her husband Antoine pass by. Among them were her two sons, both prominent criminal affairs lawyers.
“France loves Simone Veil and loves her for her struggles,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a speech at the Panthéon.
“We wanted Simone Veil to enter the Panthéon without waiting for generations to pass so that her battles, her dignity and her hope remain a compass in these troubled times.”
A Jewish survivor of the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen with the prisoner number 78651 tattooed on her arm, she was a fervent European and fighter for civil liberties, becoming the first elected president of the European Parliament in 1979.