The Best of Europe for Women - Choisir la cause des femmes

Gisèle Halimi was not alone in asking herself how women could benefit from the construction of Europe. And the answer they came up with was based on a very simple principle: they were going to take the most advanced laws in force in a European country on a given subject and ensure that these laws applied to all the women citizens of Europe. Today Choisir la cause des femmes is made up of a group of activists, women who are legal experts, lawyers, professors, students, researchers and unemployed. They have decided to focus their efforts on laws, determined to drive progress and change them. They have understood that the details of legislative texts have a huge impact on the way justice is done. So they set off on a tour of Europe to meet their fellow activists and members of feminist organisations. They carried out an investigation so they could put together this second package of laws most favourable to women in the European Union, convinced that change is built together, working collectively. A collective book coordinated by Violaine Lucas, president of Choisir la cause des femmes, with Maria Cornaz Bassoli, Manon Kerivel, Hanane Rebiha, Sakshi Arya, Ana Cuesta, Noémie Girardot, Lisa Gordet, Manon Maillard, Adèle Monod and Camille Bondon. Gisèle Halimi, feminist lawyer, former member of parliament and French ambassador to UNESCO, co-founded Choisir la cause des femmes with Simone de Beauvoir in 1971. Together with the Choisir activists, they won the Bobigny and Aix cases which advanced women's rights and helped to bring about the legalisation of abortion, criminalisation of rape and decriminalisation of homosexuality, and were the driving force in the adoption of a law on gender equality. Gisèle Halimi dedicated herself to groundbreaking feminist, social, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist campaigns.