On May 6, 2024, La Poste issued a stamp bearing the image of Alice MILLIAT, an accomplished sportswoman and committed feminist who organized the first Women's Games in 1922.
Alice Milliat was a French sports activist. She played a major role in the promotion and development of women's sport at the beginning of the 20th century, considering sporting practice as a lever for the emancipation of women, aiming for gender equality and even encouraging sportswomen to campaign for the right women's vote. President of the Fémina Sport club in 1915, she was one of the founders of the Federation of Women's Sports Societies of France in 1917, of which she became president in 1919. She campaigned for the participation of women in the Olympic Games, and faced the refusal of the IOC , decides to organize the Games herself. On Sunday August 20, 1922, 20,000 people crowded into the stands of the Pershing stadium, in the Bois de Vincennes, to attend this first official competition modeled on the Olympic model.
The success of the second edition, in Sweden in 1926, was such that the IOC finally authorized women to participate in official athletics events during the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. From 1930 a wave of conservatism regained control over the movement for the emancipation of women at work since the 1920s. While the Games were a real success and the FSFI had more and more affiliated countries, the adventure The international movement had to stop after 1934, due to lack of resources and government support. Alice Milliat, then aged 52, abandoned the public scene. No newspaper mentions his death in Paris on May 19, 1957. Even his name was not inscribed on his tombstone, in the Nantes cemetery, until 2019. As a symbol since March 8, 2021, a statue of Alice Milliat stands in the hall of the National Olympic Committee in Paris, alongside that of Pierre de Coubertin.
