Angèle Lamoureux was the first woman elected mayor in the department

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We are in July 1944, the 28th precisely. In Manche, not far from Saint-Lô, the small town of Saint-Jean-des-Baisants, with around 700 souls, has just been liberated by the Allies.

Free, but completely destroyed, or almost. Among the residents, Angèle Lamoureux, 60 years old. She doesn't know it yet, but this daughter of wealthy farmers, a fervent Catholic, will become, in a few months, the first woman to be elected mayor in the Manche department.

Here's how it went.

More than 150 years after Olympe de Gouges

“Under the aegis of General de Gaulle, the National Council of the Resistance prepared the reforms after the Liberation,” says René Gautier, local historian. Two ordinances, one of April 21, 1944, in Algiers, and the other of the following October 5, in Paris, were published in favor of women's suffrage. »

We are more than 150 years later The Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizens, written by Olympes de Gouges in 1789, beheaded on the orders of Robespierre.

“One would have thought that after the First World War, during which women had replaced the men who had gone to combat, this right to vote would have been granted to them earlier,” points out the Manche historian. But that was without counting on an ultra-conservative Senate which blocked, between 1919 and 1936, around ten legislative proposals in this direction. »

Elected mayor by surprise

In France, municipal elections April 29 and May 3, 1945 are therefore the first to include the vote of women: not only can they vote but they can also run, or even be elected.

This is what will happen to Angèle Lamoureux, almost reluctantly, because the latter is not running to be elected mayor, but only to sit on the municipal council. She, the daughter of a mayor – her father Emile Morice was elected from 1912 to 1925 – “was elected in sixth position,” says René Gautier. She becomes mayor, because the person who was approached for this position no longer wants to occupy it.”

Resignation after just seven months

At 61 years old, here is Angèle Lamoureux at the head of her commune. She is the first woman from La Manche to hold this position. However, she only stayed there for seven months.

The Reconstruction period, difficult and sensitive, did it prove too complicated to manage? Did she encounter hostility from certain men? “We don't know anything about it at the moment,” recognizes René Gautier, who is conducting research on the subject with people who have attended it.

“What is certain is that the minutes of the time show that she administered the commune with objectivity, common sense, and firmness,” notes the latter.

Replaced by Paul Auvray until 1955, Angèle Lamoureux remained municipal councillor.

Conference by Michel Boivin in 2025 and square in his name

To pay tribute to him, Saint-Jean-d'Elle will soon inaugurate a square bearing his name. Died in 1964, Angèle Lamoureux is buried in the Saint-Jean-des-Baisants cemetery.

Saturday March 22, 2025, a conference hosted by Michel Boivin, historian and political scientist, will be devoted to women's right to vote in 1944, in France and in the English Channel, with a spotlight on the historic election of Angèle Lamoureux.

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