Marcelle Abadie, now 105 years old, remembers the first time she voted in 1945. It was during the first French elections open to women. “For the first time, I existed.
Until then, I was nothing. And then, for the first time, I was asked my opinion, and therefore I existed. It had a lasting impact on me; I still think about it.
When people talk to me about voting, I always remember my first vote,” Abadie says. She recalls the social atmosphere at the time. “I was afraid men would make fun of women.
Men looked at us as if we were weird because we came to vote.
A centenarian’s first vote remembered
And actually, there were many men who didn’t allow their wives to come and vote.
And that was unacceptable.”
Abadie notes that this experience empowered her in her personal life. “I had made the decision to no longer let myself be told what to do. After that, when my husband told me what to do, I would say, ‘I’m not your daughter, you’re not my father.’ The first time, he didn’t take it well, but he understood that I was determined not to let him push me around.
I was working, so I had the right to speak.”
French women gained the right to vote in April 1944, through an order from the French interim government in exile, led by then-general and future president Charles de Gaulle. This democratic milestone was significant, although women in other Western democracies had achieved voting rights earlier. The change was a result of over 150 years of activism by French women, ranging from advocates in the 1789 revolution to 1930s suffragists.
However, the real-world impact of the widened franchise took time to fully materialize. Women had to wait until 1965 to win the right to manage their own finances and work without their husband’s approval, with the right to abortion coming in 1975. In terms of voting rights, women made up 52.2% of all registered voters in the French presidential election of 2022, according to the French statistics institute (INSEE).
