Ernaux, the first French woman to win the literature prize, said winning the award was "immense".
"It's a long path that she makes in her life," Swedish Academy member Anders Olsson told Reuters.
"I did not imagine at the time that 22 years later, the right to abortion would be challenged," Ernaux told reporters in Paris.
1/7 French novelist Annie Ernaux talks to the media after being announced as the winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature, in Cergy-Pontoise, France October 6, 2022.
"I always said that I did not want to get the Nobel prize," she told reporters at her French publisher Gallimard's office.