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Last modified: 2017-08-10 by ivan sache
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Flag of Secours populaire - Image by Ivan Sache, 19 March 2017
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The Secours populaire français (French People's Aid; website), usually known as
the Secours populaire (People's Aid), is a non-profit association
dedicated to fighting poverty and discrimination.
The association is organized in local committees (663 in 2013),
departmental federations (98), and regional councils (22) It manages
more than 1,250 reception centers. More than 80,000 volunteers work
for the association.
The Secours populaire originates in the establishment in 1923 of the
French section (Secours rouge international) of the International Red
Aid, an organization founded in 1922 by the Communist International
as an "international political Red Cross". Led by French Communists,
the Secours rouge international gained the support of influent anti-
fascists, such as the writers Henri Barbusse (1873-1935) and Romain
Rolland (1866-1944; Nobel Prize in Literature, 1915), and the
architect and designer Francis Jourdain (1876-1958).
The Secours rouge international defended the cause of convicts, anti-
colonial activists, workers fired because of their unionist or
political commitments, and political prisoners, providing material aid
to their families. The association supported in 1927 the organization
of mass protests against the sentence to death of the Italian
anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Beyond its political agenda, the
association provided aid to the children of poor families and
unemployed people.
In the aftermath of the success of the Front populaire in the French
general election, the association was renamed in 1936 as the Secours
populaire de France et des colonies. The motto of the organization,
"Tout ce qui est humain est nôtre" (Everything human is ours / is our
concern) was coined in 1938 and has remained unchanged since then.
The Secours populaire provided support to refugees expelled from their
country by war or fascist and nazi regimes. Banned during the Second
World War, the organization remained secretly active, still publishing
the magazine La Défense. One half of its leaders, however, were
arrested, shot or deported during the German occupation.
The Secours populaire français was reorganized in November 1945 and
registered on 29 January 1946, as the merger of the Secours populaire
de France and of the Association nationale des victimes du nazisme
(ANVN). The organization supported workers on strike and political
activists; as well as people victims of colonial wars in Madagascar
(1947-1948), Indochina (1945-1954), Viet Nam (1960-1975) and Algeria
(1954-1962), offering them legal advice by the so-called "Lawyers of
Secours populaire". The organization also supported the opponents to
the Greek and Spanish rulers from 1945 to 1976.
In the late 1950s, the Secours populaire put emphasis on moral and
material aid, placing its political agenda in the background. Aid was
provided to the victims of natural disasters, such as the crash of
the Malpasset barrage (1959) and the Agadir earthquake (1950), to the
children of the miners on strike (1963) and to workers during the
general strike organized in 1968. The campaigns were supported by
several artists, such as Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), who offered several
illustrations for posters and pamphlets.
In the 1980s, Secours populaire targeted its activity against poverty,
demanding access for all to food, leisure and culture. The
organization was recognized as a national association of people's
education on 10 January 1983 and was state-approved on 12 March 1985.
Ivan Sache, 19 March 2017
The flag of the Secours populaire is white with the logo of the
association. It was used, together with the Breton flag, during the "Marche de solidarité", organized from Rennes to Marseilles (10
October - 20 November 2015) to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the
association (photo,
photos,
photo,
photo).
The logo of the Secours populaire is made of a white, right hand,
outlined in black, equipped with two wings, red on top, blue on
bottom. The name of the association is written beneath the hand on
three lines, SECOURS (black) / POPULAIRE (red) / FRANÇAIS (blue).
Described as a "winged hand", the logo was imagined in 1982 by the
Grapus collective and designed by Pierre Bernard, the founder of the
collective. Dynamized by the wings, the open hand represents call to
other and solidarity to everyone. Once a traditional emblem of peace,
the hand is now a symbol of reconciliation and reciprocity; everyone
can recognize his own hand a as well as other's hand. Placed above the
name of the association, which highlights its goal in three words, the
hand is the emblem of solidarity.
Featured for more than 30 years on the association's posters and
pamphlet,s the hand suggests that the Secours populaire is physically
present beside the population and highlights its significance at the
national scale.
[Secours Populaire website]
Grapus was founded by Pierre Bernard (1942-2015), François Miehe (left in 1979) and Gérard Paris-Clavel, who were joined in 1976 by Jean-Paul Bachiollet and Alex Jordan, in the Institut de l'Environnement, a
structure established in 1969-1970 in Paris on the model of the
Bauhaus. Communist-oriented, the founders of Grapus were often called
crap-stal (crapules staliniennes, Stalinist scum) by their
colleagues; they answered by calling their group Grapus, a word built
on crap-stal and graphiste (designer). Grapus, which defended
"public-utility design", was disbanded in 1990.
Pierre Bernard then founded with Dirk Behage and Fokke Draaijer the
Atelier de création graphique (ACG), which he would direct until his
death.
[Télérama, 24 November 2015]
Ivan Sache, 19 March 2017
