In 1869 he founded Le Droit des femmes, the first French periodical entirely devoted to that cause, then, with Maria Deraismes, the League of which Victor Hugo accepted the honorary presidency. Yet he set aside the right to vote, judging women too much under the sway of the clergy.
The story
Born in 1824, Léon Richer was a journalist and a freemason. In 1869, under a Second Empire in its last years that could still suspend a newspaper with a stroke of the pen, he founded Le Droit des femmes: the first French periodical wholly devoted to the cause of women. The title was a programme; he would keep it going for more than twenty years, and the paper served as a platform for a whole generation of campaigners.
He worked with Maria Deraismes, a public speaker and woman of letters, with whom he organised in 1878 the first International Congress on the Rights of Women, in Paris. In 1882 the two founded the Ligue française pour le droit des femmes, whose honorary presidency Victor Hugo accepted — the country's first lasting feminist organisation. The congress of 1878 brought together delegations from all over Europe and from the United States, and set out a common programme for the first time.
His strategy was one of gradual reform, and it set him apart from more radical currents. He gave priority to civil law: the restoration of divorce, won in 1884, the rights of married women over their wages and their property, equality in education. He deliberately set the vote aside, holding that women, still under clerical influence, would use it against the Republic. Divorce, abolished in 1816 under the Restoration, had taken sixty-eight years to come back.
The movement he had founded made the vote its chief battle from the 1900s, against his own strategy: the calculation was held against him, and his name fell into oblivion while that of Maria Deraismes, the more radical of the two, endured. He died in 1911, at eighty-seven. The Ligue française pour le droit des femmes, for its part, still exists.
On site, do not miss
The Ligue française pour le droit des femmes, the French league for women's rights, which he founded in 1882 with Maria Deraismes, still exists.
Visitors' questions
Where is Léon Richer's grave?
In Division 48 of Père-Lachaise, the one where Balzac lies and where the obelisk of Félix de Beaujour stands, the tallest monument in the cemetery. Hubertine Auclert, who demanded the vote for women that he set aside, called him “the father of feminism”.
Hubertine AuclertWhat was Le Droit des femmes?
The paper he founded in 1869: the first French periodical given over entirely to the cause of women. He ran it for more than twenty years, under a late Second Empire that still kept the press on a leash.
Marie Béquet de VienneWhat was his connection with Maria Deraismes?
Together they founded organised French feminism: the International Congress on Women's Rights in 1878, then the French League for Women's Rights in 1882, of which Victor Hugo accepted the honorary presidency.
Gisèle HalimiWas he in favour of the vote?
No, and it was held against him: he deliberately left it aside, holding that women, still under the influence of the clergy, would use it against the Republic. His priority was civil rights.
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