AP News, January 22nd, 2007
Abbe Pierre, a French priest praised as a living legend for devoting his life to helping the homeless, using prayer and provocation to tackle misery, died Monday, his foundation said. He was 94.
One of France's most beloved public figures, Abbe Pierre died at Val de Grace military hospital in Paris, his foundation said. He had been admitted with a lung infection Jan. 14.
The founder of the international Emmaus Community for the poor, Abbe Pierre served as a spokesman for France's conscience since the 1950s when he persuaded parliament to pass a law _ still on the books _ forbidding landlords to expel tenants during winter months.
President Jacques Chirac said in a statement, "We have lost a great figure, a conscience, an incarnation of goodness."
A former monk, Resistance fighter and parliamentarian, Abbe Pierre long remained spry and determined despite the infirmities of old age. Last year, he spoke to parliament from his wheelchair, urging lawmakers not to reform a law on low-income housing.
Often donning a beret and cape, Abbe Pierre _ a code name from his World War II days _ topped polls as France's most beloved public figure almost every year. He had the ear of French leaders for decades.
Born Henry Groues, on Aug. 5, 1912, one of eight children in a well-heeled Lyon family, he exchanged comfort for a monk's cell for six years, before joining the priesthood in 1938.
He entered the Resistance in World War II, taking the name Abbe Pierre in 1942 as a cover for his work manufacturing fake identity papers and helping Jews cross the border to Switzerland.
Elected to parliament after the war, in 1945, his devotion to the "street sleepers" was awakened. A lawmaker for seven years, until 1951, he occasionally begged alms while organizing rag pickers among the homeless so they could fend for themselves.
With the help of an ex-convict and his lawmaker's salary, the first Emmaus Community house was born in 1949 in Neuilly-Plaisance, northeast of Paris. Emmaus, which helps the disenfranchised to help themselves, is now present in many countries.
In France, he created his own Abbe Pierre Foundation in 1992.
