(Montreal) Politician Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, the first woman to be perpetual secretary of the French Academy, died on Saturday at the age of 94, several French media reported.
Born Hélène Zourabichvii in Paris on July 6, 1929, she is the daughter of the economist and philosopher Georges Zourabichvii, of Georgian origin. Born stateless, she obtained French citizenship in 1950, when she was 21 years old.
In 1952, Hélène Zourabichvii married Louis Carrère d’Encausse, whose surname she adopted. From their union were born three children: Emmanuel (1957), Nathalie (1959) and Marina (1961).
Ms. Carrère d’Encausse is a graduate of the Institut d’études politiques de Paris, where she obtained the degree of doctor in 1963, then doctorate in 1976, in letters.
She first taught history at the University of Paris, then at her alma mater, before becoming director of studies at the National Foundation of Political Sciences.
Her knowledge and expertise have taken her to various universities around the world; the Université de Montréal and Université Laval have each awarded him an honorary doctorate.
After a career in teaching, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse became involved in politics, notably by adhering to certain causes.
She was appointed vice-president of the Diplomatic Archives Commission in 1993, in addition to chairing the Human Sciences Commission at the National Book Center between 1993 and 1996.
In 1994, she was noticed by Jacques Chirac, French presidential candidate, who asked her to stand for the elections to be held in June 1995. She was elected and became vice-president of the Foreign Affairs, Security and defense policy, a task she will carry out during her four-year mandate.
In 1998, she was appointed to the National Council for the Development of Humanities and Social Sciences. Six years later, she became president of the scientific council of the Observatory of Immigration and Integration Statistics.
In 1999, the year she left politics, she was elected permanent secretary of the French Academy, thus becoming the first woman to hold the most prestigious position in the institution where she had sat for nine years.
Despite this, she was reluctant to feminize names for a long time, only agreeing to form a committee on the subject in 2017. She herself considered herself THE perpetual secretary of the French Academy.
In February 2022, France 24 recalled that the French Academy had unanimously adopted a “solemn warning” against inclusive writing described as “aberration”. “The French language is now in mortal peril,” read a statement from the institution at the time.
As permanent secretary, she responded to the speech given by Quebec Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette during his visit in June 2022. “Your coming to the Academy, your projects confirm to us what we thought and thought we knew, that the battle was won in Canada, so that, as the strategist that he was, General de Gaulle said, your victory is a guarantee of the future for the French language. Our gratitude to you, to all of our friends, and I dare say our Canadian family, is immense,” she said.