Simone Veil

Simone Veil should not be confused with Simone Weil, a French philosopher.

Simone Veil, DBE (b. 13 July 1927, Nice, France) is a French lawyer and politician who served as a member of the Constitutional Council of France.

Veil was born as Simone Annie Jacob, the daughter of a Jewish architect in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France. In March 1944, Veil's family was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she would remain until the camp's 27 January 1945 liberation. Only Veil and her sister survived the internment. Veil returned to speak at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2005 for the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the camps.

Having obtained her baccalauréat in 1943 before being deported, she began the study of law and political science, where she met her future husband Antoine Veil.

The couple married on 26 October 1946, and have three sons.

From 1974 to 1979 she was Minister of Health in the governments of prime ministers Jacques Chirac and Raymond Barre. She is remembered for pushing forward laws:

• making access to contraception easier (December 4, 1974) – the sale of contraceptives such as the combined oral contraceptive pill had been made legal in 1967;
• legalizing abortion (17 January 1975), her hardest political fight, and the one for which she is best-known.

• She also served as President of the European Parliament after the parliament was directly elected for the first time in 1979.

• After many years in the European Parliament she returned to French government from 1993 to 1995 when she was Minister of State for Social Affairs, Health and Towns during the Premiership of Édouard Balladur.

• In 1998, she was appointed to the Constitutional Council. In 2005, she put herself briefly on leave from the Council in order to campaign in favour of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. This action was criticized, because it seems to contradict the legal provisions that members of the council should keep a distance from partisan politics: the independence and impartiality of the council would be jeopardized, critics said, if members can put themselves "on leave" in order to campaign for such or such project.

• In 1997, aged 70, she received an honourary damehood (DBE) from the British government for her contributions to humanity.

• In 2005 she was awarded with the Prince of Asturias Award in International Cooperation.

In 2007, Veil surprised many observers by declaring her support for the right-wing presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy. She was by his side on the day after he received 31 percent of the vote in the first round of the presidential elections that year.

Criticism from Union of Orthodox Rabbis

In a letter to then Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, Yehuda Levin, the head of the New York City-based Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada criticized Veil's presence in 2005 at the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation.

"...Veil [an Auschwitz survivor] - the orthodox rabbis said - was to be held responsible for a mass murder of human life far exceeding that of the German National Socialists by legalizing and promoting abortion ([1])".

Links

• re Honorary DBE