
Last modified: 2021-06-17 by ivan sache
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Flags of Droits devant !! - Images by Ivan Sache, 16 January 2019
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Droits devant !! is an association struggling for the equality of rights 
(identity papers, work, culture, health...) for all, founded on 18 
December 1994 in Paris by members of Droit au Logement (DAL - Right to 
Housing), an association itself founded in 1990. The main goal of DAL was to 
force the government to apply a law enacted in 1945 that prescribes the 
requisition of empty homes to house homeless people. Occupations of 
empty buildings, camps, and street demonstrations resulted in the 
re-housing of hundreds of homeless people and progress towards the 
recognition of right to housing for all.
To increase public awareness on the issue, 1,000 members of DAL, 250 
homeless people included, seized on 18 October a big building (12,000 
sq. m) left empty in the center of Paris by COGEDIM, then one of the 
biggest real estate companies in France. The homeless people were 
proposed a decent home after 13 months of occupation.
On the first day of the occupation, members of the DAL proposed to 
extent to struggle for the right of housing for all to the eqality of 
rights (identity papers, work, culture, health...) for all. The new 
associaton was named Droits devant !!. "Droit devant", an expression 
commonly used in French, means "Straight Ahead!" while "Droits devant" 
would mean "Rights First".
The association was originally co-presided by four prominent members of 
DAL, the singer Jacques Higelin (1940-2018), the geneticist Albert 
Jacquard (1925-2013), the oncologist Léon Schwartzenberg (1923-2003), 
and His Grace Jacques Gaillot (b. 1935), Roman Catholic Bishop of 
Évreux, who would be removed the next year from his see having expressed too controversial and heterodox positions on religious, political and 
social matters, and has remained since then a social activist.
[ProMosaik, 7 January 2016]
Ivan Sache, 16 January 2019
The flag of Droits devant !! is green (photo) or yellow (photo, photo) with the association's emblem, made of its name in black, filled letters. The two dots in the two "!" are shaped like a "D" and a "d", recalling the initials of the association's name.
Ivan Sache, 16 January 2019