In 1989, the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Jesuits padre Theobald Rieth creates ‘Initiative Christen für Europa’ at Dresden. The necessity of exchange between the countries of Eastern and Western Europe was crucial. These exchanges were considered to lead to a more social Europe, to reduce mutual fears, to bring over Christ’s breath of humanity in the double care for solidarity between the Europeans and the preservation of environment.

At the beginning of ICE-Réseau Francophone, it was the Dresden organisation’s will to have a French partner enframing the German volunteers serving in France in the associations’ and establishments’ bosom to the social vocation.

Thus the association ICE-Réseau Francophone was founded in Paris in 1995 and based on the hospital of the ‘Diaconesses de Reuilly’. ICE-RF, an ecumenical association, had to accompagn the young Europeans willing to sacrifice one year of their lives to support the neediest.

In 2000, the organisation’s headquarters were displaced to North-Alsace, to Niederbronn-les-bais. First placed in the ‘Centre de Rencontre Albert Schweitzer’ the association got its own locations in the very middle of Niederbronn at the end of 2008.

Since 2002, ICE-RF sends young Frenchmen to European countries: Germany, Armenia, Spain, Italy, Macedonia…