Marlène Schiappa wore a dress in men’s magazine photos and expressed her views on women’s and gay rights as well as abortion in a 12-page interview, yet she was under fire, writes Blikk.
Marlène Schiappa, the state secretary responsible for social economy, former minister responsible for gender equality, and member of the government responsible for citizenship rights, caused a huge domestic political uproar. Schiappa gave an interview to the French magazine Playboy, and her photo was also on the front page of the magazine, reports France24.
Schiappa posed not naked, but in underwear, showing a deep cleavage in the opening photo of the men’s magazine. The 41-year-old feminist writer, who has held various positions in President Emmanuel Macron’s government since 2017, talked about women’s and gay rights and abortion, among other things, in the Playboy interview.
Because of the Playboy cover, real all-out fire poured down on the politician, even her own government colleagues and allies condemned her.
Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne personally called Schiappa on the phone and told her that her performance was “absolutely inappropriate, especially in the current period,” a deputy told AFP on Saturday. The prime minister was presumably referring to the demonstrations and strikes that broke out due to the raising of the retirement age.
Marlène Schiappa dans Playboy: la majorité embarrassée pic.twitter.com/M1P6sZxh8s
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) April 1, 2023
“Where is the respect for the French?” asked Sandrine Rousseau, Green Party representative and women’s rights activist, an open critic of the Macron government. “For those who have two more years to work, who are protesting, who are not getting paid for days, who are starving because of inflation?”
“Protecting women’s right to freely dispose of their bodies: everywhere, always,” Schiappa tweeted on Saturday. “Women are free in France. Whether it annoys the retrogrades and the hypocrites or not.”
In response to the hypocritical criticism, Schiappa wrote on her own Twitter that women have the right to expose their bodies to the public whenever and wherever they want.
Défendre le droit des femmes à disposer de leurs corps, c’est partout et tout le temps.
En France, les femmes sont libres.
N’en déplaise aux rétrogrades et aux hypocrites.#Playboy— 🇫🇷 MarleneSchiappa (@MarleneSchiappa) April 1, 2023
Jean-Christophe Florentin, the editor of the 300-page, a more book-like quarterly publication, defended the politician, who in 2018 as minister of equal opportunities passed a law against street harassment. According to Florentin, Schiappa insists on women’s rights and understood that Playboy could no longer be the old macho magazine, but a tool for the feminist cause.
Photo: BFMTV-Twitter.
