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POLITICS

‘I’ve lost my eyebrows – but not my political ambition’, says France’s ex PM

France's former prime minister Edouard Philippe, a leading contender to succeed President Emmanuel Macron in 2027 elections, has opened up about a hair loss condition he says will not diminish his political ambition.

'I've lost my eyebrows - but not my political ambition', says France's ex PM
Edouard Philippe pictured in 2019, left, and 2022. Photo by Eric Feferberg and LOIC VENANCE / various sources /AFP

The 52-year-old politician, who spearheaded the government’s fight against the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, was a familiar face on television with his trademark brown beard.

Since leaving the post in the summer of 2020 and working as mayor of the Normandy port of Le Havre, his appearance has drastically changed with his hair and beard thinning and turning white suddenly.

“This is what had happened to me: I lost my eyebrows, and I don’t think they will come back,” he told BFMTV in an interview late Thursday.

“My beard has turned white, it’s falling out a bit and the hair too.

“The moustache is gone, I don’t know if it will come back, but I would be surprised,” he said.

“I have what is called alopecia,” he added, opening up about the auto-immune condition that accelerates hair loss.

He said the condition was “not painful, dangerous, contagious or serious”.

Philippe’s wry and avuncular style proved popular with many French and some speculated that his high approval ratings had caused tensions with Macron, with replaced him as Prime Minister in the summer of 2020.

Philippe now regularly tops polls of France’s most-loved and most-trusted politicians. 

He has now founded a new centrist party called Horizons that is allied with Macron’s ruling faction but also unafraid of showing an independent streak.

Some analysts see Philippe as an obvious potential successor to Macron, who must leave office after serving the maximum two terms in 2027.

And Philippe insisted that his condition would not stand in the way of his political plans.

“That doesn’t stop me from being extremely ambitious for my city,” he said referring to Le Havre.

Tellingly, he added: “It doesn’t stop me from being extremely ambitious for my country.”

With France buffeted by strikes and protests as the government seeks to push through landmark pension reform, Philippe gave his full backing to Macron for the changes.

He said he supported the changes “without ambiguity, without any bad note or any other kind of little complication”.

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POLITICS

French parliament backs bill against hair discrimination affecting black women

France's lower house of parliament on Thursday approved a bill forbidding workplace discrimination based on hair texture, which the draft law's backers say targets mostly black women wearing their hair naturally.

French parliament backs bill against hair discrimination affecting black women

Olivier Serva, an independent National Assembly deputy for the French overseas territory of Guadeloupe and the bill’s sponsor, said it would penalise any workplace discrimination based on “hair style, colour, length or texture”.

Similar laws exist in around 20 US states which have identified hair discrimination as an expression of racism.

In Britain, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has issued guidelines against hair discrimination in schools.

Serva, who is black, said women “of African descent” were often encouraged before job interviews to change their style of hair. Backers also say that men who wear their hair in styles like dreadlocks are also affected.

The bill was approved in the lower house National Assembly with 44 votes in favour and two against. It will now head to the upper Senate where the right has the majority and the vote’s outcome is much less certain.

‘Target of discrimination’

Serva, who also included discrimination suffered by blondes and redheads in his proposal, points to an American study stating that a quarter of black women polled said they had been ruled out for jobs because of how they wore their hair at the job interview.

Such statistics are hard to come by in France, which bans the compilation of personal data that mention a person’s race or ethnic background on the basis of the French Republic’s “universalist” principles.

The draft law does not, in fact, contain the term “racism”, noted Daphne Bedinade, a social anthropologist, saying the omission was problematic.

“To make this only about hair discrimination is to mask the problems of people whose hair makes them a target of discrimination, mostly black women,” she told Le Monde daily.

A black Air France air crew member in 2022 won a 10-year legal battle for the right to work with braided hair on flights after a decision by France’s highest appeals court.

While statistics are difficult to come by, high-profile people have faced online harassment because of their hairstyle.

In the political sphere they include former government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye, and Audrey Pulvar, a deputy mayor of Paris, whose afro look has attracted much negative comment online.

The bill’s critics say it is unnecessary, as discrimination based on looks is already banned by law.

“There is no legal void here,” said Eric Rocheblave, a lawyer specialising in labour law.

Calling any future law “symbolic”, Rocheblave said it would not be of much practical help when it came to proving discrimination in court.

Kenza Bel Kenadil, an influencer and self-proclaimed “activist against hair discrimination”, said a law would still send an important message.

“It would tell everybody that the law protects you in every way and lets you style your hair any way you want,” she said.

The influencer, who has 256,000 followers on Instagram, said she herself had been “forced” to tie her hair in a bun when she was working as a receptionist.

Her employers were “very clear”, she said. “It was, either you go home and fix your hair or you don’t come here to work”.

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