From May 19 to 29, 2026, Equipop traveled throughout the Lyon metropolitan area with the Feminist Solidarity Tour. Through meetings, film screenings and discussions, workshops, and community walks, several hundred people came together around a shared conviction: the defense of women’s rights is a struggle that takes place at both the local and international levels.
Preserving international solidarity and democracy
The Feminist Solidarity Tour has its roots in the “Feminist Generations” project, an initiative focused on citizenship education and international solidarity that has been underway since 2023. Funded by the AFD, the project aims to raise awareness among young people and their communities about issues of equality.
We are living in a context of backlash against the rights of women, girls, and marginalized people—and, more broadly, against democracy. Funding for international solidarity is becoming increasingly precarious, leading to a shrinking of civic spaces, including in France and particularly in Lyon, a city where political tensions between the left and the right are particularly acute. Anti-rights rhetoric obviously does not stop at borders, and in an era of strong convergence between international and national issues, these international dynamics have concrete effects on every region.
The Feminist Solidarity Tour had three objectives, aimed at demonstrating that solidarity is not a distant ideal but rather a practice carried out daily by many activists on the ground:
- Highlight the diversity of initiatives undertaken by local partners to promote gender equality and combat sexual and sexual violence throughout the “Générations Féministes” project
- Strengthen feminist solidarity throughout the Lyon metropolitan area through a variety of initiatives co-organized by several organizations.
- To help students understand the connection between international geopolitics, equality, and local dynamics
From Local to Global: Toward a Feminist Approach Rooted in Local Communities
Through cultural initiatives and community education, the Feminist Solidarity Tour facilitated collaboration with some fifteen feminist and international solidarity organizations working in the Lyon metropolitan area over a two-week period, as well as in the Rhône, Isère, and Drôme departments. Equipop provided financial and technical support to strengthen their efforts to prevent gender-based violence, reaching a wide range of audiences, particularly young people.
Usingpopular education approaches, the Ébullition association (based in Romans-sur-Isère) offered a training session on anti-racist feminist legacies, while the international solidarity association SEED (Lyon) organized an educational escape game centered on the theme “Transforming lived experience, co-creating tools for gender equality.”
Several workshops addressed the situation of particularly marginalized groups, such as children, through self-defense workshops with the IMPACT association; the situation of migrants with the migrant support association Lou Novio Jouen; and the conference “Roots and Dreams” on migration journeys.
Cultural events were also part of the tour: film screenings followed by discussions highlighting the commitment to protecting the Amazon (organized by Ecofémina) and the fight against female genital mutilation (co-organized with Filactions, featuring a presentation by GAMS Belgium). Books were also highlighted through book tours and a literary event organized by Balafre featuring author Milène Le Goff, who discussed her book *The International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women*.
Equipop serves as a resource center on issues of gender equality and international solidarity, and therefore works to support international solidarity organizations in integrating a gender equality approach into their work. The tour thus provided an opportunity to organize an inter-organizational meeting on this topic, bringing together about ten local international solidarity organizations that are members of the Maison des solidarités de Lyon.
The tour concluded with a strategic seminar, hosted by Jean Moulin Lyon III University, on the theme “Preventing Violence, Strengthening Solidarity and Democracy: Implementing Feminist Diplomacy at the Local Level.” This event helped strengthen alliances among institutional, academic, and civil society actors.
Meaningful gatherings to highlight the importance of international solidarity
With more than 250 participants, the Tour was a highlight for discussion and networking. It is only the first step: it serves as a preview of the “Tour de France of International Solidarity” that Equipop is preparing in anticipation of the 2027 elections. It is also part of the “Ici aussi.” campaign to defend women’s rights and international solidarity.
As civic space shrinks, these past ten days have served as a reminder: coming together and engaging in dialogue remain our most effective tools for defending our rights, here and elsewhere.
