Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

ELECTION

Macron accused of transphobia after lashing out at French left

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday faced accusations of transphobia after lashing out at the snap election manifesto of a new left-wing coalition, in particular a proposal allowing citizens to change their gender at the town hall.

Published: 19 June 2024 11:06 CEST
Macron accused of transphobia after lashing out at French left
French President Emmanuel Macron on the campaign trail. Photo by Christophe Ena / POOL / AFP

The emergence of the Nouveau Front Populaire – an alliance of the four biggest left-wing parties – has been an unwelcome development for Macron since he called the snap elections in response to his party’s defeat by the far right in European polls.

His ruling alliance is forecast by opinion polls to come only third in the legislative elections on June 30th – followed by a second round on July 7th – behind the Rassemblement National (RN) and the new left-wing alliance.

But Macron said Tuesday on a visit to western France that he “had confidence in the French”.

“They see well what is on offer. The RN and its allies offer things which may make people happy but in the end we are talking €100 billion a year.”

“And on the other side, with the extreme left it’s four times worse – there is no more secularism they will go back on the immigration law and there are things that are completely farcical like changing your gender at the town hall,” he added.

The left-wing coalition’s programme includes a proposal allowing the change of civil status in a town hall.

Andy Kerbrat of the far-left La France Insoumise party told gay magazine Têtu this week that changing gender would be possible by filing a request at the town hall.

At present the process to be legally recognised as the opposite sex must in

volve an application submitted to a court, and the applicant must be an adult or emancipated minor.

Reader question: Do French people change their pronouns?

The person must demonstrate that the gender listed in their identification documents (ie birth or marriage certificates) does not match the gender they identify with – this might be done via testimony from friends and family, or even photos. Since 2016, it has no longer been required to reference any ongoing or past medical treatment.

Macron’s remarks appeared to cause disquiet even in the ranks of his own ruling Renaissance party.

“For trans people, for LGBT people, for everyone… we must reject all stigmatisation in political discourse and advance rights,” Renaissance MP Clément Beaune wrote on X.

“Emmanuel Macron is using transphobia to attack the programmes of his political opponents,” said Julia Torlet of NGO SOS Homophobie.

“The strategy is clear: use minorities in the race for power,” she added.

His comments also sparked an immediate counter-attack from left-wing opponents.

Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure said: “How is it possible that this man who was elected and re-elected to confront the extreme right is in reality repeating the discourse of the extreme right?”

Communist Party chief Fabien Roussel told Franceinfo that the comments were a sign Macron was “losing his nerve”.

“I sense a bit of febrility,” he said.

The comments marked a rare intervention by Macron in the campaign, which is being led for the ruling centrist alliance by 35-year-old Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, with multiple voices within Renaissance encouraging the president to keep a lower profile.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

FRENCH ELECTIONS

French far-right battles new racism allegations ahead of vote

France's far-right National Rally (RN) faced new accusations of racism Friday two days before a high-stakes parliamentary election, with a senior MP declaring that a former education minister of Moroccan descent should never have got the job because of her origins.

Published: 29 June 2024 10:28 CEST
French far-right battles new racism allegations ahead of vote

RN lawmaker Roger Chudeau declared that Najat Vallaud-Belkacem’s appointment to the education portfolio in 2014 was “not a good thing” for France, saying that her French and Moroccan citizenship meant she had “conflicting loyalties”.

Chudeau, who is tipped to become education minister if the party wins the two-round June 30-July 7 election, said that while Vallaud-Belkacem, a Socialist, had presented her Moroccan origins as a “good thing” for the job he saw it as more of a “problem.”

He argued that cabinet posts should be held by “Franco-French” politicians, referring to people born in France to French parents.

The latest RN remarks about dual nationals have caused outrage in the run-up to the first round of the National Assembly vote Sunday.

“They try to hide their game but the real face of the RN is still there: unabashed racism and a hierarchy among the French,” outgoing parliament speaker Yael Braun-Pivet wrote on X.

The RN’s longtime leader Marine Le Pen rebuked Chudeau for his remarks about Vallaud-Belkacem, saying it was “totally contrary” to the party’s programme.

Speaking on C News channel, she said it was too late to find another candidate to replace him in his Loir-et-Cher constituency in central France but expected party leader Jordan Bardella to take action against him.

Dual nationals ‘humiliated’

The anti-immigration RN has been on a mission over the past decade to cleanse itself of the jackbooted image bequeathed by Le Pen’s father, party co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen.

The younger Le Pen’s strategy of detoxifying the party’s image by purging members accused of anti-Semitism and appointing the telegenic 28-year-old Bardella party leader has been highly successful in expanding its voter base.

But the party is still dogged by accusations of racism, which were fuelled this week by its announcement that it would, if victorious in the election, bar dual nationals from holding “highly sensitive” jobs in, for example, state security or intelligence.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal accused the RN of creating a climate of suspicion around France’s 3.5 million dual nationals that left them feeling “insulted and humiliated”.

Bardella, who hopes to become prime minister, has downplayed the furore, saying the restrictions on dual nationals concerned an “infinitely small” number of positions and suggesting that the concerns of foreign meddling target mainly Russian passport holders.

But the accusations of racism and discrimination have not gone away.

President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist camp has mapped over 100 constituencies where it says the RN is fielding candidates with extremist or fringe views on everything from race and gender relations to same-sex couples and climate change.

Several incidents since the RN’s historic score in this month’s European election have raised fears of a surge in racism.

In a widely-shared incident, the host of a current affairs TV programme, whose father is Moroccan, Karim Rissouli, shared pictures on Instagram of an anonymous letter he received, declaring that the RN’s rise was proof the French were “sick and tired of all these ‘bicots'” — a highly pejorative term for north Africans.

The incidents have done little to dent the popularity of the RN, however.

An Opinionway poll of 1,058 people published on Friday in Les Echos newspaper predicted the RN would win 37 percent of votes in the first round, ahead of the leftist New Popular Front on 28 percent and Macron’s alliance on 20 percent.

SHOW COMMENTS