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French minister appears on front cover of Playboy

Can posing for Playboy be a feminist statement? A French government minister thinks so and has defended her decision to appear -- clothed -- on the front cover of the notorious magazine.

French minister appears on front cover of Playboy
French Secretary of State for Social Economy and Associations Marlene Schiappa. Photo: Alain JOCARD/AFP

Marlene Schiappa, a 40-year-old feminist author who was plucked from obscurity by President Emmanuel Macron in 2017, is no stranger to controversy and has repeatedly angered rightwingers.

But even the prime minister and leftwing critics feel the minister for the social economy and associations has made a mistake with her latest stunt: posing for Playboy to accompany a 12-page interview on women’s and gay rights as well as abortion. 

“Defending the right of women to do what they want with their bodies: everywhere and all the time,” Schiappa wrote on Twitter on Saturday. “In France, women are free. Whether it annoys the retrogrades and hypocrites or not.”

The decision has irritated some colleagues in the government which has been battling strikes and increasingly violent demonstrations against plans to raise the retirement age by two years.

The sight of Schiappa wearing designer dresses for a glamour magazine was viewed by some as sending the wrong message, with one person quoted as saying they thought it was an April’s Fool joke when they first heard about it.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, only the second woman to occupy the position, called Schiappa to tell her that it “was not at all appropriate, especially in the current period,” an aide told AFP on Saturday.

Greens MP and fellow women’s rights activist Sandrine Rousseau, an outspoken critic of the centrist government, said: “where is the respect for the French people?

“People who are going to have to work for two years more, who are demonstrating, who are losing days of salary, who aren’t managing to eat because of inflation?” she told the BFM channel on Saturday.

“Women’s bodies should be able to be exposed anywhere, I don’t have a problem with that, but there’s a social context.”

‘Not soft porn’

Playboy has 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,” editor Jean-Christophe Florentin told 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.”

Other criticism of Schiappa has focused on the broader issue of the centrist government’s communication strategy.

Macron, who rarely gives interviews to the French press, offered his thoughts on political power and pensions in a long interview published in children’s magazine “Pif, le mag” last week.

Schiappa, a regular on French TV talk shows, brought in legislation outlawing catcalling and street harassment while serving as equalities minister in 2018.

The mother-of-two was a prolific author and blogger before her career in politics, writing about the challenges of motherhood, women’s health and pregnancy.

She also penned a 2010 book that offered sex tips for the overweight which some critics saw as propagating stereotypes.

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POLITICS

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

President Emmanuel Macron warned that the policies of his far-right and hard-left opponents could lead to ‘civil war’, as France prepared for its most divisive election in decades.

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

French politics were plunged into turmoil when Macron called snap legislative elections after his centrist party was trounced by the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in a European vote earlier this month.

Weekend polls suggested the RN would win 35-36 percent in the first round on Sunday, ahead of a left-wing alliance on 27-29.5 percent and Macron’s centrists in third on 19.5-22 percent.

A second round of voting will follow on July 7th in constituencies where no candidate takes more than 50 percent in the first round.

Speaking on the podcast Generation Do It Yourself, Macron, 46, denounced both the RN as well as the hard-left France Unbowed party.

He said the far-right “divides and pushes towards civil war”, while the hard-left La France Insoumise, which is part of the Nouveau Front Populaire alliance, proposes “a form of communitarianism”, adding that “civil war follows on from that, too”.

Reacting to Macron’s comments, far-right leader Jordan Bardella told French news outlet M6: “A President of the Republic should not say that. I want to re-establish security for all French people.”

Bardella, the RN’s 28-year-old president, earlier Monday said his party was ready to govern as he pledged to curb immigration and tackle cost-of-living issues.

“In three words: we are ready,” Bardella told a news conference as he unveiled the RN’s programme.

READ ALSO What would a far-right prime minister mean for foreigners in France?

Bardella has urged voters to give the eurosceptic party an outright majority to allow it to implement its anti-immigration, law-and-order programme.

“Seven long years of Macronism has weakened the country,” he said, vowing to boost purchasing power, “restore order” and change the law to make it easier to deport foreigners convicted of crimes.

He reiterated plans to tighten borders and make it harder for children born in France to foreign parents to gain citizenship.

Bardella added that the RN would focus on “realistic” measures to curb inflation, primarily by cutting energy taxes.

He also promised a disciplinary ‘big bang’ in schools, including a ban on mobile phones and trialling the introduction of school uniforms, a proposal previously put forward by Macron.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal of Macron’s Renaissance party poured scorn on the RN’s economic programme, telling Europe 1 radio the country was “headed straight for disaster” in the event of an RN victory.

On Tuesday, Attal will go head-to-head with Bardella and the leftist Manuel Bompard in a TV debate.

On foreign policy, Bardella said the RN opposed sending French troops and long-range missiles to Ukraine – as mooted by Macron – but would continue to provide logistical and material support.

He added that his party, which had close ties to Russia before its invasion of Ukraine, would be “extremely vigilant” in the face of Moscow’s attempts to interfere in French affairs.

Macron insisted that France would continue to support Ukraine over the long term as he met with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

“We will continue to mobilise to respond to Ukraine’s immediate needs,” he said alongside Stoltenberg at the Elysee Palace.

The election is shaping up as a showdown between the RN and the leftist Nouveau Front Populaire, which is dominated by the hard-left La France Insoumise.

Bardella claimed the RN, which mainstream parties have in the past united to block, was now the “patriotic and republican” choice faced with what he alleged was the anti-Semitism of Mélenchon’s party.

La France Insoumise, which opposes Israel’s war in Gaza and refused to label the October 7th Hamas attacks as ‘terrorism’, denies the charges of anti-Semitism.

In calling an election in just three weeks Macron hoped to trip up his opponents and catch them unprepared.

But analysts have warned the move could backfire if the deeply unpopular president is forced to share power with a prime minister from an opposing party.

RN powerhouse Marine Le Pen, who is bidding to succeed Macron as president, has called on him to step aside if he loses control of parliament.

Macron has insisted he will not resign before the end of his second term in 2027 but has vowed to heed voters’ concerns.

Speaking on Monday, Macron once again defended his choice to call snap elections.

“It’s very hard. I’m aware of it, and a lot of people are angry with me,” he said on the podcast. “But I did it because there is nothing greater and fairer in a democracy than trust in the people.”

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