Simone Veil (13 July 1927–30 June 2017) was the first female President of the European Parliament. A French lawyer, magistrate, and political leader whose life embodied the connection between memory, justice, and European reconciliation. A survivor of two Nazi concentration camps, she became one of the most respected public figures in Europe. In 1979, she was elected President of the first directly elected European Parliament, becoming the first woman to hold that position and the first woman to lead a European institution.

Born Simone Jacob in Nice to a Jewish family, she was arrested in 1944 at the age of 17 and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later Bergen-Belsen. She survived the camps, though her parents and brother perished in the Holocaust. Returning to France in 1945, she pursued studies in law and political science and entered the judiciary. Her wartime experience profoundly shaped her lifelong commitment to human dignity, reconciliation, and European unity.

Veil became a magistrate and held several senior administrative roles. In 1974 she was appointed Minister for Health in the government of President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. In 1975 she tirelessly defended legislation legalizing abortion in France, a reform that became widely associated with her name and marked a major milestone in French social policy.

In the first direct elections to the European Parliament in 1979, Veil was elected Member of Parliament and subsequently chosen by her peers as President. Her three-year presidency, from 1979 to 1982, symbolized the democratic legitimacy of the newly elected institution. She worked to strengthen parliamentary authority, promote European cooperation, and advance human rights and reconciliation across the continent.

After serving in the European Parliament for 14 years, Veil returned to participation in the French government and later became a member of that country’s Constitutional Council. She also chaired the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, dedicated to preserving the history of the Holocaust. A year after her passing, in 2018, she was interred in the Panthéon in Paris, one of France’s highest national honors.

Simone Veil’s public life represents a convergence of historical memory, institutional leadership, and commitment to Europe. Her trajectory, from the grief and horrors of the Holocaust, to proponent of national reform, equality for women and finally the European presidency, illustrates the moral and political foundations upon which post-war European integration was built.