As part of the “Essentials”: the 1944 Women’s Suffrage Order (September 14, 2022-January 9, 2023)

At the beginning of the 20th century, with the rise of feminist associations, the struggle for women’s right to vote took on new forms, more visible in the public space. While the Assembly welcomes several legislative proposals, Senators systematically block any reform. On the eve of the Second World War, France was one of the few European countries that did not grant this right to women.
Things changed in 1944, when women finally became “electorate and eligible under the same conditions as men”, as stipulated in Article 17 of the Ordinance on the Organization of Public Authorities in France after the Liberation. This short sentence represents the historical culmination of a progressive awareness and a long-term fight for the civil rights of women in France, for their emancipation, their independence and their freedom.
PARIS SITE : Ground floor of the Hotel de Soubise, Prince’s room - free visit from 8am to 8pm
PIERREFITTE SITE : Ground floor, lobby - free visit from 2pm to 6pm, Sunday flash guided tours integrated with visits to the building

Related to the exhibition

Paris site

Archival readings on the exhibition of the Women’s Suffrage Ordinance
Through reading aloud excerpts from the archives, actresses Anne-Lise Heimburger and Évelyne Didi will give an insight into the struggles of the long movement for women’s access to a fundamental right.
Saturday and Sunday, 3 pm, 4 pm, 5 pm, 6 pm
Ground floor of the Hotel de Soubise, Prince’s Room
Hotel de Soubise
60, rue des Francs-Bourgeois
75003 Paris

Pierrefitte-sur-Seine site

Screening of the film “Forgotten History of Women in the Home”
(Arte documentary)
The screening of this film in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, in the presence of director Michèle Dominici, is inscribed, beyond the history of struggles and rights, in the will and the necessity to give also to these «condemned to social invisibility» that women at home are often able to inscribe their existence and their role in the history of women’s struggles. Through family films and diaries, Michèle Dominici makes the voice of those who made the choice, during the Thirty Glorious, to dedicate themselves to their family. Screening followed by an open discussion.
Screening in the Auditorium of the National Archives of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine on Sunday, September 18 at 3:30 pm. Free entrance.