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.

[1][2][3] Born on 9 December 1927, Thérèse was brought up in a middle-class home in the city of Bagnolet where her father worked for a bookmaking company.

[4] As a catholic, she was selling the weekly journal named « Témoignage chrétien » and meeting priests workers back from military service in Algeria.

On obtaining a divorce in 1969, she bought a small apartment in Montreuil where she performed clandestine abortions until the Veil Law was adopted in 1975.

[1] In 2000, Clerc founded the Maison des Femmes in Montreuil, dedicated to assisting women who had faced violence to re-integrate into normal life.