PARIS: Marlene Schiappa, a French government minister, is facing severe backlash for appearing on the front cover of the men’s magazine Playboy, however, she has defended her decision. Schiappa, the Minister for the Social Economy and French Associations, has been criticised by other French politicians including Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne. Notably, Schiappa is known for her advocacy for women's rights.
As the former and first-ever Gender Equality Minister, she introduced the 2018 revolutionary law - named after herself - against street harassment, where men who catcall or verbally harass women in any way are given on-the-spot fines. However, the popular French politician is facing backlash after posing for the latest playboy cover, in which she also shared her opinion about her fight for women's and LGBT+ rights.
Invité ce matin sur Europe1 le Ministre de l’intérieur @GDarmanin apporte son soutien à @MarleneSchiappa sur sa Une Une de #playboy. Il cite Cookie Dingler : « vous ne me ferez pas dire de mal de Marlène Schiappa (…) être une femme libérée, c’est pas si facile » pic.twitter.com/pz50OoQdls
— Jeanne Baron (@jeannebarontv) April 2, 2023
Prime Minister Borne reportedly said, “Schiappa's decision wasn’t appropriate, especially during this period," BFMTV reported. The French Prime Minister is believed to be referring to the upheaval France faces as a result of the widely-protested law to increase the pension age, under French President Emmanuel Macron.
Meanwhile, French politician Jean Luc Mélenchon also attacked Schiappa's actions, saying that "France is going off the rails". "In a country where the President speaks in Pif (French children's publication) and his minister Schiappa in Playboy the problem would be the opposition," he tweeted.
Schiappa Defends Her Decision
Despite facing harsh backlash from "backsliders and hypocrites", Schiappa has defended her decision to pose for the French Playboy cover. "Defending the right of women to have control of their bodies is everywhere and all the time. In France, women are free," she tweeted.
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
Other French politicians, including French Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, also jumped to her defence, saying she was a "woman of character". “I wanted to say that Marlene Schiappa is a courageous female politician who has her character and who has her style which is not mine, but I respect,” he told CNews, a local news channel, CNN reported.
'Not Soft Porn'
Meanwhile, Playboy has also defended the spread which will appear in its French-language edition. Schiappa was the "most 'Playboy compatible'" of government ministers "because she is attached to the rights of women and she has understood that it's not a magazine for old machos but could be an instrument for the feminist cause," Playboy editor Jean-Christophe Florentin was quoted as saying by AFP.
"Playboy is not a soft porn magazine but a 300-page quarterly 'mook' (a mix of a book and a magazine) that is intellectual and on trend," Florentin added, while admitting there were "still a few undressed women but they're not the majority of the pages."
France is currently in the middle of a political upheaval after the government pushed through a move to raise the state pension age from 62 to 64. More than a million people in France protested the decision, setting fires and smashing storefront windows.
