Marie Janson

Marie Janson (born July 23, 1873 in Brussels ; † March 8, 1960 there ) was a Belgian politician and women's rights activist . She was the first woman to be a member of the Belgian Senate .

Life

family

Marie Janson was the daughter of Paul Janson and Anna-Augustine Amoré. Her father was a leading member of the liberal democratic movement in Belgium. He was the founder of the Fédération Progressiste . Her brother Paul-Émile Janson became Belgian Prime Minister.

Marie's mother, Anna-Augustine Amoré, was a well-mannered middle-class woman who worked as a teacher at Isabelle Gatti de Gamond's school before she married. Marie was also educated at this school.

On July 22, 1894, Marie Janson married the lawyer and writer Paul Spaak . The couple had four children: the future Belgian Prime Minister and NATO Secretary General Paul-Henri Spaak , Madeline Spaak (* 1895), the screenwriter Charles Spaak and the playwright Claude Spaak , who was married to the resistance fighter Suzanne Spaak . The actresses Agnès Spaak and Cathérine Spaak are her granddaughters. Her granddaughter Antoinette Spaak follows in her footsteps: she became the first Belgian woman to head a political party.

Political work

During the First World War Marie was actively involved in social work . This led to her becoming a member of the Belgian Socialist Party . She was elected to the city council of Saint-Gilles / Sint-Gillis in 1921 . In the same year she was selected by the party leadership under the direction of Émile Vandervelde for the Belgian Senate . She continued as a co-opted member of the Senate until 1958.

literature

• Valérie Piette: JANSON Marie (1873–1960), épouse SPAAK , in: E. Gubin, C. Jacques, V. Piette, J. Puissant (eds.): Dictionnaire des femmes belges. XIXe et XXe siècles. Éditions Racine, Bruxelles 2006, ISBN 2-87386-434-6
• Marie Spaak , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 21/1960 from May 16, 1960, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)