Hélène Brion

Hélène Brion
Hélène Brion in November 1917
Born	(1882-01-27)27 January 1882 Clermont-Ferrand, Auvergne, France
Died	31 August 1962(1962-08-31) (aged 80) Ennery, Val-d'Oise, France
Nationality	French
Occupation	Teacher
Known for	Feminism, pacifism

Hélène Brion (27 January 1882 – 31 August 1962) was a French teacher, feminist, socialist and communist. She was one of the leaders of the French teachers' union. During World War I (1914–18) she was arrested for distributing pacifist propaganda, given a suspended sentence and dismissed from her job as a teacher. She visited Russia soon after the Russian Revolution, and wrote a book on her experiences. It was never published. She devoted much of her effort in later years to preparing a feminist encyclopedia, which was never completed or published.

Hélène Brion was born in Clermont-Ferrand, Auvergne on 27 January 1882. Her family were teachers. She was orphaned when very young, and spent her childhood in the Ardennes with her grandmother. She studied at the Ecole Primaire Supérieure Sophie Germain in Paris to become a teacher. Unions had been authorized in 1884, but state employees could not belong to them. They could however join friendly societies. Brion was working as a teacher in 1905 when she enrolled in the new federation of school teachers and in the Socialist Party (SFIO). Brion never married, but around 1905–07 she had two children by a Russian immigrant. She taught at a nursery school (école maternelle) in Pantin, on the outskirts of Paris.

Brion was active in various feminist organizations for most of her life, fighting for equal legal rights for women and for the vote. These would include Le Suffrage des Femmes, L’Union fraternelle des Femmes, La Fédération féminine universitaire, La Ligue pour le droit des femmes, L’Union française pour le suffrage des femmes and La Ligue nationale du vote. In 1907 the International Socialist Conference of Stuttgart forbade socialist women from collaborating with "bourgeois" feminists. Brion, Marthe Bigot and Madeleine Pelletier resisted this decision. While belonging to the extreme left, they tried to maintain radical feminism.

After the Congress of Chambéry in 1912 Hélène Brion joined the Confederal Committee of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT: General Confederation of Labor). She became assistant secretary of the teacher's union in January 1914. With the outbreak of World War I in July 1914 the teacher's union office was reduced to Brion as acting secretary general and Fernand Loriot as treasurer. Loriot was appointed treasurer of the Federation of Teachers' Unions in 1915, and was appointed by Brion to the central committee. He devoted much effort to fighting the nationalist unions that supported the war, along with Alphonse Merrheim, Albert Bourderon and Raymond Péricat.