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 magazine amid a crisis in French politics not seen for several years.
Marlène Schiappa, a 40-year-old feminist author who was plucked from obscurity by President Emmanuel Macron in 2017 to serve in his government, is no stranger to controversy and has repeatedly angered right-wingers.
But even some allies feel the minister made a mistake with her latest move: posing (clothed) on the cover of Playboy to accompany a 12-page interview on women's and gay rights as well as abortion.
The decision 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.
Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, who is only the second woman to occupy the position, called Schiappa personally to tell her that it "was not at all appropriate, especially in the current period", an aide told AFP on Saturday.
Schiappa is currently the minister for the social economy and French associations. She previously served as the minister for gender equality.
"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 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.
"Where is the respect for the French people?" asked Green MP and fellow women's rights activist Sandrine Rousseau, an outspoken critic of the centrist government.
"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."
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'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.
Schiappa, a regular on French TV talk shows, brought in legislation outlawing catcalling and street harassment while serving as equalities minister in 2018.
Asked at the time about the difficulty of drawing a line between harassment and flirtation, Schiappa replied: "We know very well at what point we start feeling intimidated, unsafe or harassed in the street."
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.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
