Rotary in Paris France
Courtesy of the Rotary Club de Paris
Since the 2024 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, are taking place in Paris, France, here is some information about Rotary in the City of Light. With a population of over 2.1 million, it is not unusual that there are over 45 Rotary clubs that call Paris home. The clubs are in Rotary District 1660.
The oldest of the Rotary clubs in Paris is the Rotary Club of Paris was founded on April 1, 1921. Today the club has some 180 members, It is thus the father, grandfather or great grandfather of French Clubs, but also of clubs abroad such as Brussels (1923) or Zurich (1924). It founded the Rotaract of Paris (in 1969) under the presidency of Guy CRESCENT.
The “ prehistory ” of the club starts in 1913 with American Rotarian Frank L. Mulholland, in concert with the Englishman Thomas Stephenson, who had the idea of establishing a Club in France and which was supported by the founder Paul Harris. These first contacts were interrupted by the First World War. But the arrival of American forces in France with many officers who were members of American clubs provided a new opportunity. At the armistice in 1918, an “ Allied Club ” was created in France to allow Rotarians from the Armed Forces to meet at the Continental Hotel.
1921, two years after the armistice and at the end of the so-called "Spanish" flu epidemic, proved to be a disappointing year for pacifists and those who wanted the First World War to be "the war to end all wars". In Eastern Europe (in Poland, Hungary, in the new USSR), in Asia (former Ottoman Empire) the war continued, making the idea of Peace essential. This idea of Peace through understanding between peoples then encountered a strong pacifist current in France, particularly among those who had suffered from the war or had seen its effects in hospitals.
The presentation of the charter to the Paris Club was done officially on April 1, 1921, followed by festivities (invitation of all the Rotarians gathered at the time at the international convention in Edinburgh) such that they almost cost the Club its financial survival. But very quickly new members were admitted. The membership exceeded 40 members in 1922 and reached 185 members in 1939.
Among the many presidents who have succeeded one another at the head of the Paris Club, Maurice DUPERREY (1928-1929) is considered the most eminent. He is to this day the only Frenchman to have presided over Rotary International, it was during the year 1937-1938. We see him here next to Paul HARRIS.The Rotary Club of Paris quickly spread, successively sponsoring the Clubs of Lyon, Toulouse, then Nice, Vichy, Angers, Marseille, Lille, Perpignan, Dijon, Saint Raphaël, Tours, Clermont-Ferrand, Reims, and also Zurich and Brussels . As early as 1928, contacts were made by Paris with Egyptians for the creation of the Cairo Club.
At the start of the resumption of hostilities between France and Germany, the Club, whose headquarters were at the Crillon, met at the Grand Hôtel, near the Opera, where many members, mobilized, went in uniform. The German breakthrough in June 1940 left the Club's administrative secretary with very little time to take the Club's archives with him in the exodus.
During the occupation, the Club, banned by the Germans, nevertheless met clandestinely in small groups. The meetings were itinerant from restaurant to restaurant, led by Edmond Chaix, eponymous and publisher of the gastronomic guides and the famous railway timetable. One day, at the Rotonde, sees a German officer lurking suspiciously around the tables. All the participants expect to be arrested. Maurice Duperrey then gets up and goes to meet the soldier. He was an officer in charge of monitoring the Renault factories, he was himself a … Rotarian.
In 1945 the club resumed its activities and the publication of its bulletin. There were deaths and missing persons in deportation among the members who had joined the club before the war. Others returned with the glory of having resisted or participated in the battles for victory. The Club did not escape the creation of a purge committee.
The professor of public law René Cassin, an ardent pacifist activist, joined the Club in 1931. Returning from London where he had joined General de Gaulle, he wrote the founding act of Free France before participating, after the Nuremberg trials, in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. His participation in the construction of these institutions earned him the Nobel Peace Prize, the presidency of what was to become the Constitutional Council of the Fifth Republic and the presidency of the European Court of Human Rights, in addition to the Vice-presidency of the Council of State.
In 1985/1986, club President Guy Crescent, who had suffered from polio since the age of 7, firmly committed the Club to the campaign fight against the scourge of polio initiated by Rotary International. In less than thirty years, the disease has been almost completely eradicated. More than 2 billion children have been vaccinated worldwide. The WHO (World Health Organization) estimates that Rotary has saved at least 5 million human lives.
In 1998 the Paris Club welcomed the first female member of the Club. In 2009, the Club had for the first time a woman as President. It is a Frenchwoman, Catherine Noyer - Riveau , member of the Paris club and former Governor of a Parisian district who was the first woman admitted to the board of Rotary International.
Since its inception, the Paris Club has honored the Rotary motto: “To serve” by making donations and honorary loans for humanitarian causes. But that’s not all. The Rotary Club of Paris also puts its expertise and that of its members at the service of the general interest. For example, in 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, the Rotary Club of Paris compiled a very detailed 200-page study of the results of a survey conducted among all French Clubs on the state of employment in their members’ companies and unemployment in their respective geographic areas. This study, valuable for in-depth knowledge of the economic fabric, was submitted to the public authorities to enlighten them on realities that they did not know with such a degree of precision.This information is courtesy of The Rotary Club of Paris website - https://rotaryparis.org/fr/le-club/histoire