L’Académie française che, fondata nel 1635 dal cardinale Richelieu, ha lo scopo di fissare le regole e di far rispettare la lingua di Moliere

(AP Photo/Philippe Wopjazer)

Simone Veil, dressed in the French Academician’s uniform of a black jacket embroidered in green laurel leaves, displays her ceremonial epee in the library of the Institut de France before a ceremony in Paris, Thursday March 18, 2010. The name of Simone Veil, now 82, is synonymous with the battle that she spearheaded to legalize abortion in France. She has twice served as minister, for health and social affairs, and became the first woman president of the European Parliament. Veil, a French political icon who survived Nazi death camps and went on to become a moral figurehead for France, was inducted Thursday into the Academie Francaise, the sixth woman to cross the portals of the centuries-old institution.