French feminists

Jules Allix (9 September 1818 in Fontenay-le-Comte, Vendée – 1st September 1903 in Paris) was a feminist, socialist, political activist and eccentric inventor. A communard, he was mayor of the 8th arrondissement of Paris.

Paulette Nardal (12 October 1896 – 16 February 1985) was a French writer from Martinique, a journalist, and one of the drivers of the development of black literary consciousness. She was one of the authors involved in the creation of the Négritude genre and introduced French intellectuals to the works of members of the Harlem Renaissance through her translations.
Born into the upper-middle class on Martinique, Nardal became a teacher and went to complete her education in Paris. She was the first black person to study at the Sorbonne in 1920 and with her sisters established an influential literary salon, Le Salon de Clamart, which explored the experiences of the African diaspora. As a journalist and author, she published works that advocated a Pan-African awareness and acknowledged the similarities of challenges faced by people due to racism and sexism. Though an ardent feminist, she was not radical, encouraging women to work within the existing social structures to achieve political influence.
At the beginning of World War II, Nardal fled France but was injured when a submarine attacked her ship, causing a lifelong disability. Returning to Martinique, she established feminist organizations and newspapers encouraging educated women to channel their energies into social improvement. She sponsored home economic training and founded nursery schools for impoverished women. Because of her understanding of issues facing the populations of the Caribbean, she was hired to work as an area specialist at the United Nations. Nardal was the first black woman to hold an official post in the Division of Non-Self-Governing Territories at the UN.
When she returned to Martinique after her UN position, she worked to preserve the musical traditions of the country. She wrote a history of traditional music styles for the centennial celebration of the abolition of slavery on the island and developed a choir that celebrated the African-roots of the music of Martinique.
In the post-World War II period, Paulette Nardal was nominated as a delegate to the United Nations in 1946. She worked in the Division of Non-Self Governing Territories. She returned to Martinique in 1948, and in the 1950s and 1960s, she supported Dr. Martin Luther King’s campaign for civil rights in the United States. Paulette Nardal, who never married, died in Fort-de-France, Martinique on February 16, 1985. She was 88.

Martine Billard (born 7 October 1952 in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine) is a French politician and a deputy to the National Assembly of France. She is a member of the Parti de Gauche.

Antoinette Fouque (née Antoinette Grugnardi; 1 October 1936 – 20 February 2014) was a French psychoanalyst who was involved in the French women's liberation movement. She was the leader of one of the groups that originally formed the French Women's Liberation (MLF), and she later registered the trademark MLF specifically under her name. She helped found the publishing house Éditions des Femmes (English: Women's Editions) as well as the first collection of audio-books in France, "Bibliothèque des voix" (Library of voices). Her position in feminist theory was primarily essentialist, and heavily based in psychoanalysis. She helped author Le Dictionnaire universel des créatrices (2013), a biographical dictionary about creative women.

Berty Albrecht (15 February 1893 – 31 May 1943) was a French feminist and French Resistance martyr of the Second World War.

Françoise d'Eaubonne (French: [fʁɑ̃swaz d‿obɔn]; 12 March 1920 – 3 August 2005) was a French author, labour rights activist, environmentalist, and feminist. Her 1974 book, Le Féminisme ou la Mort, introduced the term ecofeminism. She co-founded the Front homosexuel d'action révolutionnaire, a homosexual revolutionary alliance in Paris.

Clémentine Autain (French pronunciation: [klemɑ̃tin otɛ̃]; born 26 May 1973) is a French politician and journalist who has represented the 11th constituency of the Seine-Saint-Denis department in the National Assembly since 2017. She is a member of La France Insoumise (LFI).
Autain is the daughter of singer Yvan Dautin and actress Dominique Laffin. A feminist activist, she is co-editor of the monthly publication Regards with Roger Martelli and co-secretary of the Fondation Copernic, a "circle of reflection" critical of liberalism.
In 2001, Autain was elected to the Council of Paris for the 17th arrondissement with the support of the French Communist Party, where she served one term. As a councillor, she developed the Conseils de la jeunesse de Paris (Youth Councils of Paris). From 2001 to 2008, she held the title of Deputy Mayor of Paris under Bertrand Delanoë tasked with youth affairs. She was a member of the executive council of the Organisme d'habitations à loyer modéré and Offices publics d'aménagement et de construction, organisations responsible for the management of low-cost housing in Paris. In 2014, she was elected to the municipal council of Sevran, where she served again one term.
Autain has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the 11th constituency of Seine-Saint-Denis since 2017 as a member of La France Insoumise. She currently holds a position in the Bureau of the National Assembly of the 15th legislature of the French Fifth Republic as a secretary. She has also served as a regional councillor of Île-de-France since 2021, previously holding a seat in the regional council from 2015 until her resignation in 2017 to focus on her work as an MP.

Inessa Fyodorovna Armand (born Elisabeth-Inès Stéphane d'Herbenville; 8 May 1874 – 24 September 1920) was a French-Russian communist politician, member of the Bolsheviks and a feminist who spent most of her life in Russia. Armand, being an important figure in the pre-Revolution Russian communist movement and the early days of the communist era, had been almost forgotten for some time (due to deliberate Stalinist censorship, partly in consideration of her relationship with Lenin) until the partial opening of Soviet archives during the 1990s (despite this, many valuable sources regarding her life still remain inaccessible in Russian archives). Historian Michael Pearson wrote about her: "She was to help him (Lenin) recover his position and hone his Bolsheviks into a force that would acquire more power than the tsar, and would herself by 1919 become the most powerful woman in Moscow."

Françoise Héritier (15 November 1933 – 15 November 2017) was a French anthropologist, ethnologist, and feminist. She was the successor of Claude Lévi-Strauss at the Collège de France (Chair of Comparative Studies of African Societies from 1982 to 1998, now emeritus professor). Her work dealt mainly with the theory of alliances and on the prohibition of incest (both theories based on the notion of exchange of women). In addition to Lévi-Strauss, she was also influenced by Alfred Radcliffe-Brown. She was replaced by Philippe Descola, who is the current holder of the chair of anthropology at the Collège.

Louise Weiss (25 January 1893 – 26 May 1983) was a French author, journalist, feminist and European politician.