Veil should be admitted to Panthéon, petitioners say

The Panthéon houses a long list of illustrious names, among them Alexandre Dumas, Marie Curie and Louis Braille.

Up to 250,000 people are now demanding that Simone Veil be added to that list, in which case she would become one of only five women buried in the Panthéon.

Mrs Veil passed away on Friday, and since then petitions have sprung up on Change.org, Avaaz, Pétitions24.net and MesOpinions.com. The Change.org petition alone has notched up over 165,000 of its target 200,000 signatures.

“Holocaust survivor, former Minister of Health, first President of the European Parliament, member of the constitutional council and the French Academy, left us on June 30. It is essential that she be paid homage, because French women owe her so much, and because our country can only be grateful to her,” says an open letter to President Macron on MesOpinions.com, demanding that Veil be admitted to the Panthéon.

Mrs Veil was a key campaigner for the legalisation of abortion in France, and the 1975 ‘Veil Law’ was pushed through during her time as Health Minister.

The final decision about whether to admit Mrs Veil to the Panthéon rests with the President.

Her granddaughter has stated that Mrs Veil would want to be buried alongside her husband. There is an option for an empty coffin to be buried.