Irène Pétry (19 June 1922 – 17 April 2007) was a Belgian socialist politician. She was the first female president of the Constitutional Court (formerly known as the Court of Arbitration). She took part in founding a movement called the "Femmes Prévoyantes Socialistes". She was one of the first women to pursue a political career that took her to the highest levels. The ènePémain idea for which she fought her whole life was the equality and emancipation of man and woman.
Youth
Irene Pétry grew up with five brothers in a working-class family. Her parents were fervent members of the Belgian Workers Party, ancestor of the Parti Socialiste. She was involved in politics from an early age, and participated in local meetings of this party. Irene was a good student and managed to finish her economics degree at the Royal Athenaeum of Waremme in 1942. She was forced to interrupt her studies because of World War II and for lack of money. As a substitute for university education she attended socialist popular education circles, took language courses and participated in conferences.
Femmes Prévoyantes Socialistes (FPS)
Irène Pétry began work as a private employee in a company located in Liège. Later, after the war, she joined the Socialist Mutuality in her hometown of Waremme, where she developed a section called "Femmes Prévoyantes Socialistes" (Forward-looking Socialist Women). This group was located at the Joseph Wauters Clinic, also in Waremme. Today it is a medical analysis laboratory. The Femmes Prévoyantes Socialistes (FPS) movement has evolved greatly since the time when Irene Pétry inaugurated it. Today, this movement prioritizes the equality of men and women (fighting wage inequality and the issue of part-time work). The FPS movement also militates for the rights of citizens (voluntary termination of pregnancy, fight against insecurity) while conducting prevention campaigns with the aim of raising citizens' awareness about the fight against domestic violence, prevention of bulimia and anorexia, and screening for breast cancer. In this way, the movement fights for an egalitarian society with specific political demands. After the establishment of the FPS movement, Irene Pétry was its National Secretary for French-speakers for nearly 30 years (1953 to 1982).
At the same time, she had other duties. She was the editor-in-chief of a monthly magazine published called La Femme Prévoyante, and she was one of the presenters of the television program "La pensée socialiste" (Socialist Thought) at RTBF.
Irene Pétry's political commitment did not stop with the FPS movement. She also agitated for women's rights. As early as the 1950s, she fought for economic and legal gender equality. Later, in the 1960s, she emphasized the development and growth of more and more family planning centers. She continued to advance, and in the 1970s militated for decriminalizing abortion prior to legalizing it. However she chose to take a step back when faced with "extremist" feminist groups that emerged in the 1970s.
Political career
From 1959 to 1964 Irène Pétry was a communal councilor in Uccle. In 1966, she became vice-president and then president of the International Council of Women of the Socialist International. Subsequently, she was appointed Vice President of the Socialist International. The Socialist International Women is the international organization of women's organizations of socialist, social democratic and labor parties affiliated to the Socialist International.
Meanwhile, in the late sixties, Irene found herself involved in government, without being a member of parliament. In the early seventies, she joined the office of the Socialist Party. At the beginning of 1973 she became the Secretary of State for Development Cooperation. She performed this function in the Leburton-Tindemans-De Clercq government for a period of 10 months. She also became deputy to the Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs Minister at the time, Renaat Van Elslande, a Belgian politician of the Flemish Social Christian Party (Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams). Renaat Van Elslande served as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1973 to 1977. Irene was thus the first socialist woman to hold a ministerial office in Belgium.