FRANCAISAction Contre la Faim - History
1979
- November 1979, France: in the context of the invasion of Afghanistan by the Red Army, AICF (International Action Against Hunger), which bears its present name since 1996, is officially launched at the European Parliament in Strasbourg by academics, journalists and managing directors like Guy Sorman, Françoise Giroud, Jacques Attali or Bernard-Henri Lévy. Physics Nobel Prize winner in 1966, Alfred Kastler (1902-1984) chairs the organisation before Françoise Giroud and Guy Sorman take over. Former resistant opposed to colonial wars and supportive of Pierre Mendès-France’s government in the 1950’s, Françoise Giroud (1916-2003) will remain for a long period honorary president of AICF. Co director, between 1953 and 1974, of l’Express, a newspaper which she created with Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, Françoise Giroud was Secretary of State for Women in the government of Jacques Chirac in 1974-76 then for Culture in the government of Raymond Barre in 1976-77.
