Born in 1884 in the western French city of Nantes, Alice Milliat was a keen rower and swimmer who, in 1922, established the Women’s Olympic Games in Paris. Just over 100 years later, this summer’s Games will be the first to see the same number of women athletes as men compete.
As a young woman, Milliat – born Alice Million, to working-class parents – spent time in England, where she married Joseph Milliat, who was also from Nantes.
While there, Milliat took up rowing. After her husband's death in 1908, she travelled widely, honing language skills that allowed her to become a translator.
When World War I broke out, she returned to France.
In 1915, she took charge of Fémina Sport, a women’s sports club in Paris, where she was a keen rower.
Stéphane Gachet, Milliat’s biographer, says the war had created a unique opening for women – because “men had freed up their places in homes, in factories and on sports fields”.
But, it was still difficult for women to enter sports competitions, which went against the norms imposed by religion and even certain doctors at the beginning of the 20th century.
“A woman was not to undress or expose herself in public. She absolutely had to preserve herself. Her only goal was to have children,” Gachet told RFI.
Women in charge
While sportswomen were first admitted to the Olympics in 1900, they were confined to so-called feminine events: tennis, sailing, croquet, horse riding, but certainly not track and field.
With her enterprising spirit, Milliat believed that to change things, women's clubs must be led by women.
In 1919, she became director of the French Federation of Women's Sporting Societies (FSFSF), which organised competitions for athletics, basketball, football, rugby and hockey.
But when Milliat asked the International Olympic Committee to include women's athletics events in the next Olympic Games, her request met with refusal from its then president, French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin.
“I personally do not approve of the participation of women in public competitions,” he said in a public address at the time. “At the Olympic Games, their role should above all be to crown the winners.”
In 1921, Milliat organised an international sporting event in Monte Carlo that brought together women athletes from France, Britain, Italy, Norway and Sweden.
Shortly afterwards, she founded the International Women’s Sporting Federation (FSFI). The organisation established the first Women's World Games in Paris in 1922, two years before Paris would host the Summer Olympics.
The success was immediate and lasted until the fourth and final edition in 1934.
“It is reported that there were more than 20,000 spectators in the stadiums,” says Gachet.
Too long forgotten
But war would again determine in the turn of events. In the 1940s, under France's pro-Nazi Vichy regime, most of Milliat’s efforts were erased as women were once again banned from practicing sports in public competitions.
“It is as if the sport of the '20s and '30s had never existed,” Gachet says.
In her later years, Milliat turned to translating and secretarial work until her death in 1957.
“Her grave is surprisingly simple and modest,” Gachet says of Milliat’s resting place in Nantes.
Until 2020, her name was not even inscribed on the tombstone.
But since then, efforts have begun to get her greater recognition.
Just near the cemetery where Milliat is buried is a nursery and elementary school under construction. “It will be the first school in France to bear the name of Alice Milliat,” says Gachet, who is also on the area's regional council.
Meanwhile in Paris, the organisation Feminists in the City has begun guided tours with help from the Alice Milliat Foundation.
One of the sites they visit is the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF), located in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.
“There are two statues that sit here in the hall of the CNOSF,” points out Sonia, one of the guides.
“On the right, we have Baron Pierre de Coubertin. And on the left, it’s Alice Milliat. It was a long battle. It took seven long years for her to sit here.”
Out of the shadows
Caroline, one of the participants on a recent tour, says it’s essential to bring Milliat’s story out of the shadows.
“We need more women in the federations; we also need more money, because today funding is not at all equivalent to what men get.
“In short, we are still far from having equity in sports practice between men and women,” she says. “So the fight continues!”
At the Paris Olympics this summer, for the first time in the history of the Games there will be exactly the same number of women as men competing – 5,250 precisely.
Tess Harmand, the managing director of the Alice Milliat Foundation, created in 2016 to promote women's sport, warns that for all the good news, society must remain vigilant.
“We hope that this interest in Alice Milliat will not decline after the Games. We are hopeful that all the actions we are doing can continue well beyond the Olympics,” she says.
“Because sport remains a fantastic tool for changing mentalities and for creating more equality in society too.”
This story was adapted from an original report in French by RFI's Baptiste Coulon.
