Even in his childhood, Abbé Pierre discovered the diversity of other cultures and international issues. He deepened his knowledge further by working as a chaplain for young workers and later fighting in the Resistance.
With peace restored, he joined forces with those who were seeking a way of avoiding a third world war by setting up a supranational government, which would preside over nation-states: world federalism.

Along with 80 members of parliament he set up a French federalist parliamentary group on 19 June 1947.

Two months later, he attended the founding congress in Montreux in Switzerland of the Universal Movement for a World Confederation.  It was chaired by John Boyd Orr, who received the Nobel prize in 1949. He was elected vice-chair, then chair of the executive committee.

This position led him to travel the world to promote the ideas of federalism. That is also how he met some of the world’s leading figures: Albert Einstein (member of the World Federalist Movement) in the United States in 1948, Pope Pius XII at the Vatican, Indian leaders and disciples of Gandhi, and many others.

After four enthralling years, in 1952 Abbé Pierre decided to pass on the baton to devote himself entirely to Emmaus.

The Union of European Federalists, the European Parliamentary Union, Parliamentary Conference for a World Confederation, the World Federalist Movement, Citizens of the World…

In 1950 in Geneva, he took part in the first meeting of the Global Council of the Peoples' Constituent Assembly.

Abbé Pierre’s loyalty to world federalism continued throughout his life. In 1997 he was still a supporter and member of the honorary committee of the French branch of the World Federalist movement. On 27 November 1999, speaking to conference, 'Transforming unbridled globalisation into institutional globalisation’ he renewed his original commitment to world federalism.

Although he had been a Resistance fighter and member of the national defence committee, as a parliamentarian Abbé Pierre began calling in 1947 for the status of conscientious objector to be officially recognised. In December 1949, he was one of a few behind the first bill for the creation of civic service for conscientious objectors. It was to be a long struggle that would come to fruition in 1963.

He met Habib Bourguiba, a clandestine activist for Tunisian independence in 1948 in Paris. He discussed how war could be avoided in the pursuit of independence, which was finally reached in 1956.

In December 1948, he publicly supported Garry Davis, the first Citizen of the World, at the General Assembly of the United Nations in Paris. Shortly afterwards, Member of Parliament, Abbé Pierre declared himself a Citizen of the World.

He supported, or was a member of, a great many pacifist movements including Non-Violent Civic Action, World Peace Brigade for Non-Violent Action, Committee for the Defence of Freedom and the Law, International Confederation for Disarmament and Peace, the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Pacifist Union of France (an affiliate of War Resisters’ International).

Several points illustrate Abbé Pierre's international recognition in this domain:

• Between March and May 1960, he visited the French Sub-Saharan African colonies that were in the midst of their struggles for independence (Central African Republic, Cameroon, Gabon, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal). There he met with defenders of the status quo as well as pro-independence activists, some of whom were his friends. He was an official guest at Togo’s independence celebrations on 27 April.
• In April 1962, the organisation Uhuru – Africa Freedom Action based in Dar es Salaam called on him to support the struggle for freedom and democracy in Central Africa, particularly in order to protect the freedom of movement of the future president of the Republic of Tanganyika.
• In June 1962, his friends and leaders of India invited him to the convention against nuclear armament organised by the Gandhi Peace Foundation, held in Delhi. He had a private meeting with Rada Krishnan, President of the Indian Union, as well as his predecessor and successor.
• In 1963, the Israeli branch of War Resisters' International put forward Abbé Pierre as a candidate for the organisation’s executive committee.
• In 1967, after a noteworthy speech at the Stockholm conference on Vietnam, he was asked to sit on the monitoring committee, although he declined due to a lack of time.
• In 1971, the Indo-Pakistani conflict heightened the threat of a third world war and brought several million refugees to India. Abbé Pierre was one of three official guests from France at an international conference held in New Delhi by the Indian government. On his return, he appealed to the 38,000 mayors of France to set up twinning agreements between French towns and cities with Bengali refugee camps in India.
• In 1991, during the Gulf War, Abbé Pierre twice appealed for peace and expressed his opposition to war in letters addressed to Presidents George Bush and Saddam Hussein.
• In 1995, he visited the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem, accompanied by Bernard Kouchner, who was at that time a member of the European Parliament. He then travelled to Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina, whilst bombs rained on the city, which for three years had been under siege by Serb forces. He urged the nations of the world to take emergency action to put an end to the massacres.

In December 1959, on return from his travels in Latin America, he discussed with officials at the International Labour Office in Geneva about conditions for development aid for indigenous populations in the Andes, as well as the conditions for youth volunteering.

In May 1965, he gave a remarkable speech at a conference, ‘Adapting the United Nations to today’s world’ held in Nice and organised by the Association for the Development of International Law, in the presence of the UN Under-Secretary-General.

On 14 September 1999, Abbé Pierre was invited by UNESCO to speak at the launch ceremony of the International Year of Culture and Peace.

Abbé Pierre went to Chile to meet the military authorities. Wearing his military medals, he managed to secure the two community leaders’ release in exchange for their lifelong exile.

1990: friends and fellow members of Emmaus in Benin, Albert Tévoédjrè and the Archbishop of Cotonou, Isidore De Souza were heavily involved in the country’s return to democracy after almost 17 years of dictatorship. They called on Emmaus International to offer practical support for civil society activists helping society’s poorest members. Abbé Pierre endorsed the campaign launched by Emmaus International and several other NGOs ‘for democratic reform in Benin’.

With the third world foreign debt crisis in full swing, they questioned the structural adjustment policies the IMF was imposing on indebted countries, which were leading to deep cuts in welfare budgets.

He went on to speak at a great many conferences in France, often at the request of other organisations also involved in the campaign.

On 14 March 1963, Abbé Pierre was one of the 29 world-renowned figures invited to Rome to the special meeting of the FAO on the right to freedom from hunger. He also signed the manifesto declaring the right to freedom from hunger.

1991: Abbé Pierre supported 102 African families who squatted in an area at quai de la Gare in Paris. He did this with support from distinguished figures such as professors Albert Jacquard and Léon Schwarzenberg, who were there to see the tents put up. He championed their cause to all the authorities concerned.

July 1992: nominated Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honour, Abbé Pierre refused to accept and wear the decoration in protest against the lack of an effective housing policy for disadvantaged members of society. This refusal led to the creation of the High Committee for Housing for the Disadvantaged, under the Prime Minister’s responsibility.

1995: once again, he challenged French elected representatives about the right to housing.

On 24 January 2006, he gave a stirring speech at the French National Assembly to members of parliament who were discussing a bill to make a national commitment to housing.

You can see an interview (in French) with him in no. 15-16 of the review, 'Plein Droit' by the Immigrants' Information and Support Group (Gisti).

1996: Abbé Pierre supported undocumented persons who were occupying the churches of St Ambroise and St Bernard in Paris.

He also accompanied Vinoba Bhave, disciple of Gandhi and land reform activist, on a march to isolated villages in Gujarat. In its edition of 15 January 1959, the Delhi Statesman dubbed Abbé Pierre “a French Vinoba”.

In January 1959, when stopping off in Beirut, Abbé Pierre gave another conference. The minister of the interior and social affaires was won over and awarded him the Lebanese First Class Order of Merit.

July – August 1959: on his first trip to Latin America, Abbé Pierre was received by some of the most illustrious political and religious figures. The president of Ecuador gave him rank of officer in the National Order of Merit.

The foreign honorary prizes and distinctions awarded to Abbé Pierre include the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal in 1975, which was awarded to him by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe-Stiftung de Bâle; the International Balzan Prize for Humanity, Peace and Fraternity Among Peoples in 1991; the Alfonso Comín International Award in 1995 for his tireless struggle on behalf of the marginalised; the ‘Giorgio La Pira’ Peace and Solidarity Award in 1996.

He was awarded most of these distinctions for his peacekeeping efforts and for his struggles to combat poverty.

As from the second half of the 1950s, their common struggle for the poorest members of society led him to meet two bishops: dom Hélder Câmara in Brazil and Monsignor Georges Mercier, bishop of the Saharan oases, who would work for this cause at the Second Vatican Council.

• with Pastor André Trocmé, who was also involved in campaigning for world federalism, and with his wife Magda, of the European bureau of the International Movement for Reconciliation, a French branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation
• and with Vinoba Bhave, his encounter with whom was one of the major events of his spiritual life.

On 25 June 2000 and on 11 September 2002, he took part in inter-religious ceremonies for peace, alongside representatives of the Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Baha’i communities, and was involved with the Geneva Spiritual Appeal.

In 1947, Abbé Pierre rented out a large run-down house in Neuilly-Plaisance, in the eastern suburbs of Paris. True to his ideals, he turned the house into an international youth hostel to accommodate young men and women “whose fathers, not long before, were killing each other and who would discover, with peace newly restored, the extent of the abomination of which Man had been capable”.

In autumn 1949, Abbé Pierre, was called to assist Georges, a former prisoner who had lost all hope and tried to commit suicide.  “That is how Emmaus was born.  Because, without giving it a second thought, I spontaneously decided to go against the very notion of charity. Instead of saying, ‘you are unhappy, I will give you a home, a job and some money’, the circumstances made me say quite the opposite. I could only tell him the truth, ‘you are dreadfully unhappy, and I have nothing to give you (…). But you, seeing as you want to die, you’ve got nothing to lose. So why don’t you come and help me help others?’ (…)  If ever that principle were forgotten, Emmaus would cease to exist. That is what Emmaus is all about. It’s about saying to people who see themselves as a burden, who don't see any point to their lives, ‘I have nothing to give you, except my friendship, and my plea to you to help me so that together we can help save others'”.

That is how Georges became the first companion. The house soon welcomed more like him, which is how the first Emmaus community came into being.

In December 1949, a few days before Christmas, Abbé Pierre put up the first family, who had been evicted from their home. In October 1950, the companions and Abbé Pierre were given permission to build the first set of homes. Abbé Pierre went on to buy a plot of land to build more homes.

Following his defeat at the elections of June 1951, he lost his parliamentary expenses allowance which he used previously to keep the community running. In December, the community’s funds dried up, so he decided do go begging outside theatre entrances. On learning this, a companion explained to him how he used to survive by going through the rubbish and salvaging what he could sell. Abbé Pierre decided to try this idea out and the companion-builders became rag pickers.

With funds running out, Abbé Pierre went ahead and put up tents and built shelters on cheap land without running water. When the authorities demanded to see his building permit, he told them he would put up signs reading "permission to live".

To raise funding for his activities, in 1952 he took part in a game on Radio Luxembourg, “Double or Quits”, winning 256 000 francs which he used to buy a van and some more plots of land.

 

There were officially 7 million people in France living in substandard housing. The Emmaus companions’ action wasn’t enough. Abbé Pierre dreamed of an extensive programme to build emergency housing.

In December 1953, his friend Léo Hamon tabled and supported an amendment to earmark one billion francs of the building budget to emergency accommodation. However the Parliament adjourned the amendment indefinitely.  Abbé Pierre heard of this at the same time as he learned that on the night of 3 January 1954 a baby froze to death in an old bus at the Coquelicots emergency housing site. He then wrote an open, stirring letter to the Housing Minister, who came to the baby’s funeral – “the funeral of national shame” – in Abbé Pierre’s own words.

The Abbé and his ragpickers trawled the streets of Paris giving out blankets, soup and coffee to people living in the streets. At the same time, the Interior Minister was increasing the issue of eviction orders.

While speaking on the radio, Abbé Pierre put forward an idea which became known as the “hundred franc note' campaign”. On 31 January, the first centre to distribute emergency supplies to the homeless was opened on rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève in Paris, followed by a second one in Courbevoie.

On the morning of 1 February 1954, Abbé Pierre heard that a woman, who had been evicted from her home two days previously, had frozen to death in the street. With a friend, Georges Verpraet, a parliamentary journalist, he wrote the appeal that was firstly broadcast on Paris-Inter, and was then read out by both men on Radio Luxembourg that very midday.

Listen to Abbé Pierre’s appeal

His appeal immediately gave rise to a huge surge of solidarity. Dubbed the “uprising of kindness”, Abbé Pierre preferred to call it an “uprising of intelligence”. Donations for the homeless came flooding in. Thanks to the popularity of the radio, Abbé Pierre became a symbol of the “war against poverty”.

The government followed suit.Three days later, it freed up 10 billion francs for the construction of 10,000 emergency homes, and approved a law forbidding evictions during the winter.

At the end of June 1954, Abbé Pierre brought out Faim & Soif (hunger and thirst), a new kind of newspaper intended to raise the public’s awareness about these issues in France and in the rest of the world.

The world’s media covered the events of 1954. The whole world wanted to find out about the man who roused his country to action.

In March 1956, Mohamed V, King of Morocco, which had become newly independent, turned to Emmaus for advice on clearing its shantytowns. After a visit there, Abbé Pierre said, “You can have all the money in the world, but you can’t achieve anything without people. But with people, you can do anything, and you can make money.” He recommended the implementation of a rural training programme.

Abbé Pierre’s struggle against poverty took him around the world.

From April – May 1955, Abbé Pierre travelled to the United States and Canada on the initiative of philosopher, Jacques Maritain, at the same time as the film, Les Chiffonniers d’Emmaus (The Emmaus Ragpickers) was released. He met President Roosevelt there and the highest religious authorities. The events were covered by the media in several European countries.

In September 1956, he spoke to an audience of 800,000 people in Cologne, Germany.  He went to the Netherlands and Portugal in 1957, Sweden, Belgium and Austria in 1958.

In December 1958 – January 1959, he discovered India where an old friendship linked him to the leaders and disciples of Gandhi, the result of shared struggles for world federalism and the struggle against poverty. He travelled a total of 10,000km around the country, meeting Mother Teresa in Calcutta as well as Nehru along the way.

He stopped off in Lebanon where his conferences received a great deal of attention.

Between July – August 1959, he visited most of the countries in South America and a few newly-formed Emmaus organisations. He forged a strong friendship with dom Hélder Câmara, auxiliary bishop of Rio de Janeiro, who shared his struggle for society’s most disadvantaged members and championed their cause before the Latino-American Catholic authorities and the Vatican.

In 1959, he was invited to Sweden, where the authorities were concerned about a significant increase in the numbers of university students committing suicide. Abbé Pierre urged them to sign up to become international volunteers in India and Latin America. In the decades that followed, he would repeat the same message to young people around the world.

Whilst Emmaus communities were increasingly being set up in France, Abbé Pierre continued with his meetings and conferences around the world – in Europe (including Austria, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden), in Africa (Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Senegal, Togo), South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela) and North America (Canada and the United States), Asia (South Korea and Japan), Lebanon and many other countries.

Abbé Pierre’s involvement in the Resistance began on 18 July 1942, when he took in two Jewish people who knocked on his door as they were being hunted down. At that moment, he realised the extent of the persecution the Jews were facing and spontaneously began to take action. With assistance from a nun he managed to obtained false identity papers for them and helped them escape to Switzerland. He created networks of routes through the Alps and set up a workshop in his home to manufacture false identity papers.

In February 1943, a law was passed to provide forced labour for Germany. Abbé Pierre formed the first maquis (underground fighters) for young people resisting the new law, and in April 1943, he founded a newspaper for them, for which he needed a secretary. He then met Lucie Coutaz, his loyal secretary for 39 years, who supported him with all his struggles and later co-founded Emmaus with him.

During this period, Henri Grouès used four different pseudonyms, including Abbé Pierre, so as to avoid identification by the Gestapo and Vichy police, whilst he became increasingly active in the Resistance.  In May 1944, he was sent to cross the Pyrenees to Algiers covertly where he met General de Gaulle.

The fifth of eight children, Henri Grouès was born on 5 August 1912 in Lyon to an upper middle class Catholic family. During his childhood, he was instilled with values based on Christianity and solidarity. His father, Antoine Grouès, was Director of the Rhône foundries. Driven by the ethos of showing solidarity and sharing with others, he was involved in the work of many organisations, in particular the Hospitaliers-Veilleurs, a charitable organisation in Lyon.

At the age of 12, Henri Grouès found out what his father used to do every Sunday morning. He would shave and cut the hair of around fifty homeless men, and serve them breakfast. He was known as the “pauper’s barber”.

Henri Grouès’s childhood was therefore very much influenced by solidarity and religion.

Henri Grouès joined the scouts in 1925. The scouting movement had a huge influence on his formative years and adult life. Abbé Pierre’s interest in the scouting movement was to remain throughout his life.

Henri Grouès studied with the Jesuits in Lyon. In 1927 he went on a school trip to Rome. On the way back, he had a revelation when they stopped off in Asisi. The following year, he read about the life of St Francis. The ascetic lifestyle appealed to him and would guide him in his vocation.  From then onwards, Henri Grouès would read and pray a great deal.

However, the boy scout nicknamed the “contemplative beaver” still hesitated between devoting himself to quiet reflection and taking action: he wavered between “heading out into the desert so he could devote all his attention to Jesus” or fighting “as an activist on enemy ground, battling with all his might”.

In the end, Henri Grouès decided to enter the order of the Capuchins, the most austere branch of the Franciscans. On 21 November 1931, when he was still only 19, he joined the Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours monastery in Saint-Etienne.

In 1932, he was named brother Philippe and joined the monastery of Crest in the Drôme, where he spent seven years studying and took his vows on 3 January 1937.

Even though he was to later describe this period as one of “true inner happiness” and invaluable preparation for his later life as an out-of-the-ordinary priest, he found monastery life very challenging.

He suffered from loneliness, low intellectual stimulation and the harsh living conditions. He was also plagued by long-standing health problems.

He was ordained on 24 August 1938. However he found monastery life increasingly hard to cope with and his health prevented him from being able to withstand the harsh living conditions. He was later given permission to leave the Capuchin order in April 1939. The bishop of Grenoble agreed to admit him and ordained him assistant priest of the St Joseph basilica. 

When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, he was drafted in as a non-commissioned officer. Hospitalised from January to July, he was demobilised on 31 August 1940. His bishop then made him hospital chaplain in La Mure in the Isère in September 1940, then priest in charge of religious instruction at a public orphanage in Côte-Saint-André in January 1942. He was later made assistant priest of the cathedral of Grenoble from 15 July 1942, a position he held until the end of 1943. Navy chaplain from mid 1944 to the end of 1945, he remained first and foremost a priest up until the end of his life.

The 6th world assembly held in Verona, Italy, adopted a new set of guidelines and proposals for the movement as a whole. Several organisations from West Africa were invited as observers.

An Emmaus International conference held in Benin in 1989 marked a new start for Emmaus in Africa, following the departure of the Emmaus organisation in Rwanda. The first organisations were located in Benin, near Porto Novo and Cotonou, and in Burkina Faso.

With the fall of the Berlin wall in November 1989, Emmaus organisations were set up in Eastern Europe. Representatives were invited as observers to the world assembly, bringing about the creation of more Emmaus organisations in Eastern Europe.

The 8th world assembly of Emmaus International took place at the UNESCO headquarters and adopted two more founding texts. The ‘Emmaus Principles and Membership Charter’ explains the movement’s common objectives, what sets it apart from other organisations, and member organisations’ rights and duties. ‘Solidarity and Political Commitments’ clarifies the movement’s core values, the challenges of the day and puts forward courses of action for change.

The 9th world assembly of Emmaus International marked the movement’s 50th anniversary. The closing statement, ‘Against the globalisation of poverty’, called on every citizen, whether part of “charities and consumer movements, business organizations, unions and political parties” to take responsibility for their actions. Throughout the world, everyone must “fight for a "globalization of brotherhood" […] for an economy that gives a place to the marginalized and the excluded […],  become the actor for an in-depth change of mentalities […] for democracy in the world and against religious, ethnic, or cultural intolerance”.

The 10th world assembly in 2003 in Ouagadougou was of particular importance as it was the first assembly to take place in a country in the global South. It made significant changes to the statutes, emphasised the board’s policy role, set out the regions’ and nations’ roles in the decentralisation process and decided on a new regional distribution.  
The closing statement underlined that throughout the world, people are suffering as a result of not having access to their fundamental rights.
Following the world assembly, three priority areas were adopted, grouping together member organisations’ concrete action and common policy – access to water, ethical finance and the rights of migrants.

Emmaus International was then organised into four different regions – Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. One of the regions’ main responsibilities is to advocate Emmaus International’s policies to public authorities, such as the European Union in the case of the Europe region. The regions consist of legal entities in one of the countries in the region.

Henri Grouès, known as Abbé Pierre, died on the morning of 22 January 2007, at the Val-de-Grâce hospital in Paris.
A week was devoted to paying tribute to him in France and in all the Emmaus member organisations worldwide. They mourned the loss of a leading figure in the struggle against poverty. His death was reported in the media worldwide. Three thousand people from many parts of the world gathered at a ceremony at the Paris-Bercy arena on 25 January.  
The religious ceremony was held on 26 January at Notre Dame cathedral and was attended by the French President. According to the family’s wishes, the usual protocol was dispensed with so that Emmaus companions who had come to the funeral from across the world could sit in the first two rows – in front of the highest authorities of the French State. The ceremony was followed by 1,500 companions who sat inside the cathedral, thousands of people gathered outside and millions of television viewers.
Renzo Fior, Chair of Emmaus International urged for people “to continue, throughout the world, the action that began in France in 1949”. As Abbé Pierre wanted, he was buried at a private ceremony at the cemetery in Esteville, Normadie (France) alongside Lucie Coutaz and Georges Legay.

The world assembly in 2007 took place in Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was the first Emmaus International General Assembly without the Movement’s founder, Abbé Pierre. The world assembly accepted Abbé Pierre’s will which states that Emmaus International is his sole legatee. This status was soon given recognition by the French authorities. A resolution on ‘Together in diversity in the struggle to defend human rights’ and a declaration on freedom of movement were adopted.

More than 480 members of the movement from the four regions met up in the French Basque Country. The assembly underscored that solidarity is its core value and is central to all of Emmaus International’s activities.
In its closing statement, ‘A better future is possible', it calls on citizens and society to “Make people our primary concern once again, rethink our lifestyles and consumption […] Demand that everyone have access to basic rights”.

We are doing this because “continuing our action means bringing back the ethos of Abbé Pierre’s first companions, thinking about how we need to change our action to go with the changes happening in our societies, and rediscovering the value of sharing with the poor”. (Letter addressed to member organisations from Jean Rousseau, Chair of Emmaus International).