Thérèse Clerc

Thérèse Clerc (1927–2016) was a French militant feminist who was active principally in the city of Montreuil. A member of the Movement for Freedom of Abortion and Birth Control, she performed clandestines abortions for women in difficulty in her small Montreuil apartment until 1975 when abortions were legalized under the Veil Law. In 2000, she founded the Maison des Femmes, a cultural, social and feminist centre for women who had been the victims of violence, later renamed Maison Thérèse Clerc. For many years, Clerc fought for the establishment of a self-managed home for elderly women in Montreuil, finally succeeding with the Maison des Babayagas in 2013.