CNN
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French Minister Marlène Schiappa was criticized by members of her own party after appearing on the cover of Playboy magazine.
Schiappa, who has been a government minister since 2017, appeared on the cover of the magazine to accompany a 12-page interview she did on women’s and LGBT rights. Schiappa, the current French Minister of Social Economy and Associations, was photographed for the cover wearing a white dress.
Schiappa has long championed women’s rights and was named the country’s first-ever Gender Equality Minister in 2017. In this role, she successfully spearheaded a new sexual harassment law that allows on-the-spot fines to be issued to men who insult, harass or follow women in the street.
His appearance sparked criticism from fellow politicians, including French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.
Borne brought up Schiappa on the cover, telling him it was “not appropriate, especially during this period,” CNN affiliate BFMTV reported Saturday, citing a source close to the prime minister.
France is currently in the grip of a political and social crisis triggered by French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to push forward controversial pension reforms despite widespread public opposition.
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“We are in the middle of a social crisis, there is the question of maintaining order, there are people between life and death, and I have the impression of being behind a smoke screen,” Sandrine Rousseau, environmentalist and women’s rights activist, declared on Friday on BFMTV.
French politician Jean Luc Mélenchon, who came third in the 2022 presidential elections, criticized both Schiappa’s appearance and French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to grant an interview to children’s magazine Pif Gadget this week.
“In a country where the president speaks as Pif and his minister as Playboy, the problem would be the opposition. France is going off the rails,” Mélenchon tweeted on Saturday.
Schiappa responded to his critics in a tweet on Saturday, saying: “Defending women’s right to control their bodies is everywhere and all the time. In France, women are free. With all due respect to the detractors and hypocrites.”
French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin defended Schiappa on Sunday in an interview with French news channel CNews, calling her a “woman of character.”
“I wanted to say that Marlène Schiappa is a courageous politician who has her character and who has her style which is not mine, but which I respect,” he declared.