Florence Hervé

Florence Hervé (born 17 April 1944) is a Franco-German journalist, historian and feminist activist.

She rejected the state decoration, explaining in an open letter to the then President of Germany Joachim Gauck that although the honour came in recognition of her many years of unpaid work on women's issues and policies, along with Franco-German co-operation and international co-operation more generally, her work had frequently placed her in direct opposition to whichever one of a succession of German governments was in power at the time.

[a][4] She grew up in a conservative but relatively open-minded family[2] in the suburb of Ville-d'Avray, a short distance to the west of Boulogne.

She has contributed to mainly left-of-center publications, including Réforme, Deutsche Volkszeitung,[7] Frankfurter Rundschau, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger and Junge Welt.

[4] Issues on which her work as an author and editor focuses include confrontation with fascism and colonialism, the history of anti-fascist resistance and the conditions of women in the global south and north.