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French government cracks down on ‘sexist’ toys

The French government signed an agreement on Tuesday to fight cliched sexist divides in toy shops.

Published: 24 September 2019 15:47 CEST

French government cracks down on 'sexist' toys

Photo: AFP: A mother and her daughter look at the shelves of a big toy shop in Bruay-la-Buissiere on November 20, 2010.

The old adage ‘dolls for the girls, cars for the boys’ will hopefully become a thing of the past in France thanks to a new agreement that aims to reduce gender stereotypes.

On Tuesday, it was signed by the Secretary of State for the Economy, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, with major toy manufacturers, distributors and shops.

“We are looking to work on the creation of new toys, and also how they are represented in advertisements and the way they are sold,” said Pannier-Runacher.

Through this text, entitled “Charter for a mixed representation of toys”, the whole sector is committed to making “measurable” efforts to improve the gender-neutral representation of toys, explained the French Federation of Toy/Periculture Industries.

In the build-up to Christmas, French toy shops will not divide into pink sections for girls, filled with dolls and soft toys, and blue sections for boys, filled with cars and construction sets.

It is hoped that this new directive will help broaden children's approaches to toys and, subsequently, to life. For example, there are not many scientific toys currently aimed at girls and there is a limited number of women working in science. This new text hopes to play a role in helping young girls to project themselves into a scientific career by providing them with exposure to scientific toys.

“We know that the first thousand days (of life) is where a lot is created and established in a child.

“Fighting discrimination later on requires action right from the very first days”, added the Secretary of State for Children, Adrien Taquet.

French vocabulary

Jouets – toys

Peluches – cuddly toys

Poupées – dolls

Lutter – to fight

Les stéréotypes de genre – gender stereotypes

Member comments

Anonymous - 25 September 2019 at 03:40 CEST

Peluche is used in Panama for cuddly. Remember we had the French there for a while during the construction of the el Canal Frances. Brings back memories, osito de peluche.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.