On Saturday January 13th, 40 Days For Life has been officially presented in Paris, France.

The event took place in the Patronage du Bon Conseil in the French capital. About 25 people attended the event.

Robert Colquhoun, director of international campaigns, flew from London to Paris to support this first time event in France.  In his presentation he cleared the doubts about the legality and results of these campaigns around the world and especially in neighbor countries such as Spain, UK and Germany.

Dr Maria Pilar Calva, a Mexican doctor and academic, shared her testimony about her experience working with Dr Jérôme Lejeune, the Catholic scientist who was world famous for discovering the genetic cause of Down syndrome and for caring for those with Down syndrome. Many mothers testified that once Lejeune told them about the cause of their child’s illness, they were able to see them as exactly that: their child. She recalled Lejeune's testimony when he lost the Nobel prize for being truthful.

The French Government is seeking to put abortion in the French Constitution. Significant doubt remains in the minds of French christians over whether praying in public for a pro-life position is legal, and there is not a tradition of prayer in public in France at present. 

Many French citizens are skeptical that such a campaign could successfully happen, and place many caveats of how such an initiative could not work because of secularism, apathy and legality. During the presentation Robert Colquhoun dealt exclusively with those doubts with clear specific examples of how 40 Days for life has brought results in hundreds of communities worldwide leading to intense spiritual renewal and hope, even in the most difficult of environments to see spiritual change. 

During the presentation, he emphasized how 40 Days for Life is a locally organized community initiative, and also an international movement, down to the local people to bring to reality and how outstanding campaigns have happened even in the most secular of locations, bringing extraordinary fruit. 

Prayer and public witness is not something alien to Paris. There has been continuous adoration of the Eucharist at Montmartre for over 100 years, in addition stunning Catholic history from Rue du Bac where the tradition of the miraculous medal started after apparitions of the Virgin Mary.

Paris is steeped not only in Catholic history but a strong tradition of public manifestation (the French Revolution, Paris protests from Manif pour tous, the Yellow Jacket campaign, French farmers, wage protests and even the March for Life has seen 20,000 French people witness publicly before). The French pro-life movement, after long periods of defeats and lack of progress, is tired and in need of inspiration.

A number of young people, medical students, veteran pro-life campaigners eager for change in France and others interested in seeing the film Unplanned attended the workshop. All were deeply inspired by the movie.

Although a leader has not emerged at present at this stage, with the continuous baby steps, it will be soon that we will see a first campaign in France with enormous potential for grassroots pro-life activism in a country of 64 million people.