Remember when we visited the Pantheon in Paris and we learned that only two women were buried there? One being the wife of a baron and the other one being Marie Curie. I also told you that there was some push from the French public to have more women in there so they were considering moving Simone de Beauvoir from her resting place in the Montparnasse cemetery. Personally, I don't like that idea because right now, she's buried next to her long-time partner, Jean-Paul Sartre so moving her (but not him) would mean they wouldn't be together anymore. I just think they should be together.
Anyways, Simone Veil passed away last week and after the public voicing their opinion, President Macron just announced that she will be buried in the Pantheon. So another woman is going in the Pantheon!
A Holocaust survivor, Veil later became a lawyer and politician is best known for her fight to legalize abortion. The law passed became known as "la loi Veil", named after her. She was also elected member of the illustrious Académie Française in 2008.
Pretty cool stuff.
CORRECTION/UPDATE: There are two other women, Germaine Tillion and Genevieve de Gaulle-Anthonioz, both Resistance fighters during WW2, that were buried symbolically (soil from their gravesite) in the Pantheon in 2014 but their actual remains are elsewhere.
