“Until the end, she campaigned for the recognition and care of victims of attacks,” said her daughter Deborah Rudetzki, contacted by AFP.
Lawyer, Françoise Rudetzki had created SOS Attentats, the first association for the defense of victims of acts of terrorism, in December 1985, a date which marked the beginning of a wave of deadly attacks linked to the Middle East conflict in Paris.
And as early as 1986, it had obtained the creation of the Guarantee Fund for victims of acts of terrorism, financed by a small levy on each property insurance contract, a guarantee extended in 1990 to all victims of criminal offenses (rapes, assaults, robberies).
“Until her death”, she remained “member of the board of directors” of the Guarantee Fund for victims of acts of terrorism and other offenses (FGTI), the Rudetzki and Dab families said in their press release.
On December 23, 1983, Françoise Rudetzki was the victim of a bomb attack at the Grand Véfour restaurant, under the arcades of the Palais-Royal, in Paris, where she was celebrating ten years of marriage with her husband. The explosion had thrown a metal door which had crushed the legs of the young businesswoman.
“At that time, we never talked about the victims,” Françoise Rudetzki later told AFP. “The word victim was a bit like a word that should not be pronounced and only the doctors took care of the victims”.
Thereafter, the legal chroniclers will have crossed her countless times at the hearings and in the corridors of the Paris courthouse, where she moved with the help of English canes, she who, after the attack, had suffered dozens of operations.
“Françoise Rudetzki has always wanted to fight for the dignity, for the recognition of the rights” of the victims and “she never lets go”, declared President François Hollande while paying tribute to her in 2016 at the Elysée Palace, before decorating her of the National Order of Merit.
She had succeeded in having victims of terrorism recognized as civilian victims of war and the possibility for associations to be civil parties during trials.
His funeral will take place in the strictest family privacy, said his relatives.
