Gisèle Halimi, a Tunisian-born French lawyer, author and feminist who devoted her life to defending women's rights and was instrumental in winning the decriminalisation of abortion in France, died Tuesday aged 93, reports FRANCE 24.
Halimi died peacefully a day after her 93rd birthday, one of her three sons, Emmanuel Faux, told AFP. "She fought to reach 93," he added.
Born into a modest family in Tunis on July 27, 1927, Halimi embarked on a legal career before moving to France, where she made her name by defending activists from the Algerian nationalist movement, the National Liberation Front (FLN)
But she earned national fame as a campaigning lawyer, notably in a 1972 trial where she defended a minor who was on trial for having an abortion after a rape
She ensured not only that the young woman, Marie-Claire Chevalier, was acquitted but helped swing public opinion behind the realisation that such trials had no place in a rapidly modernising France.
Along with French writer Jean-Paul Sartre and feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, she had already founded in 1971 the association "Choose" to battle for the right to abortion.
She become one of the most prominent of 343 women who in 1971 also signed an open letter saying that they had had abortions.
The Chevalier case helped spur the momentum that enabled Halimi and other activists, including the iconic women's rights lawmaker Simone Veil, to win the decriminalisation of abortion in 1975.
In 1981, Halimi was elected to the French National Assembly as a Socialist Party candidate although she distanced herself from the party after her election.
In addition to her legal and political careers, Halimi was also a renowned feminist author. Her oeuvre included "Djamila Boupacha" (1962), a biography of an Algerian FLN activist who was brutally tortured and raped under French custody.