Claire Davinroy

Claire Davinroy (née Clémence Valy; 14 October 1897, in Paris – 15 February 1973) was one of the first women to sit in the French Parliament. She was a French Resistance fighter and a member of the Provisional Consultative Assembly between 1944 and 1945. She was awarded the Croix de guerre 1939-1945 with Palme and the Resistance Medal.

Biography Davinroy was a professor of higher primary education in Paris. After 1940, she belonged to a resistance group led by Pierre Brossolette. Interned at Fresnes Prison, Davinroy was deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp on 31 January 1944 and was released on 9 April 1945.

After her release she was a delegate to the Provisional Consultative Assembly representing prisoners and deportees. She sat there from 20 July 1945 to 3 August 1945. Later, she was Secretary General of the Former Deportees and Internees of the Resistance (ADIR).

She then became principal of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.