Jeanne Mélin
| Jeanne Mélin | |
|---|---|
Jeanne Mélin in 1921 in Marseille
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| Born |
17 September 1877 Carignan, Ardennes, France |
| Died | 18 April 1964 (aged 86) Sedan, Ardennes, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Other names | Thalès Jehanne |
| Occupation | Pacifist, feminist, writer and politician |
Jeanne Mélin (17 September 1877 – 18 April 1964) was a French pacifist, feminist, writer and politician who wrote under the pseudonym Thalès Jehanne. She fought for peace between France and Germany, and for the right of women to vote. She was a candidate for election as President of France in 1947.
Jeanne Mélin was born in 1877 in Carignan, Ardennes, to a bourgeois family. Her father, who ran the family brickyard, was an anti-clerical Republican and supporter of Alfred Dreyfus. He was inspired by the theories of Jean-Baptiste André Godin, and was a philanthropist who wanted to put an end to poverty. Jeanne Mélin received a typical education for a girl of her class at the time. She attended the Sainte-Chrétienne de Carignan boarding school for her secondary education. In 1898 Mélin joined Sylvie Hugo Flammarion's association for Peace and Disarmament by Women (La Paix et le Désarmement par les Femmes), and founded a branch of the association in the Ardennes. She developed moderate views based on the pacifist and educational virtues of motherhood.
From 1900 to 1914 Mélin fought for a moderate pacifism based on arbitration of disputes within the Peace Through Law Association (ADP: Association de la paix par le droit). She was influenced by the socialist and pacifist Jean Jaurès. In 1906 she became a member of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO: Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière). She also joined the French Union for Women's Suffrage (UFSF: Union Française pour le Suffrage des Femmes), where she advocated a staged approach to giving women the franchise. Mélin gained a solid reputation as a speaker through her participation in pacifist and feminist conferences in France and Europe between 1910 and 1914. She had advanced views on morality, and in 1907 advocated birth control and sex education for girls as well as boys.
The outbreak of World War I (July 1914 – November 1918) caused an upheaval in Mélin's thinking. In August 1914 she was in Brussels at the meeting of European pacifists. She did not accept the passive attitude of German pacifists such Alfred Hermann Fried, who took refuge in Switzerland and avoided comment on German responsibility. She was shocked by the assassination of the anti-militarist leader Jean Jaurès. On 24 August 1914 the Germans reached the Ardennes and her home town, where she lived with her aged parents, was bombed. Her brother was mobilized and the factory that she co-directed with him was closed. She took refuge in Dun-sur-Auron, in the Val de Loire. From September 1914 to August 1915 she was a voluntary inspector at the military hospital in Dun-sur-Auron, which received many amputees.
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