Thousands of people on Sunday rallied in Paris and other cities across France to denounce the far-right National Rally party’s “false feminism” and the “real danger” it poses to women’s rights. The demonstrations came exactly a week before France’s snap parliamentary elections, with polls showing the National Rally and its allies leading the first round of the vote.
The demonstrations, organised by French women’s associations, NGOs and trade unions, came amid fears of a rollback of women’s rights – particularly reproductive rights – if the National Rally triumphs in the 2024 legislative elections.
In the latest poll published Sunday, the Ipsos survey showed the National Rally and its allies leading with 35.5% of the vote. The left-wing New Popular Front (NPF) alliance came second with 29.5% of the vote.
Protesters wearing shades of pink and violet marched from the Place de la République square in central Paris to Place de la Nation in the east, bearing signs with messages such as "Push back the far right, not our rights".
Reporting from Place de la République, FRANCE 24’s Vedika Bahl said the atmosphere at the demonstration was lively and defiant.
“Just moments ago, hundreds of women, all from different feminist groups and associations, all blew a whistle at the same time. It was a symbolic gesture, because that's what they said they've come here to do: to blow the whistle and raise the alarm about the dangers that women could face should the far right come into power here in France. I have spoken to a few women, and all of them say the main danger that people seem to be afraid of is reproductive rights,” said Bahl.
Earlier this year, on International Women’s Day on March 8, France enshrined the right to abortion in its constitution following a majority vote in parliament.
“Whilst France has enshrined abortion into its constitution, several women told me that they are concerned about funding being cut to family planning groups and associations that help women defend their rights to their own bodies,” explained Bahl.
Read moreFrance seals constitutional right to abortion on International Women’s Day
Despite the constitutional guarantee, women’s rights supporters fear the far right will steadily chip away at the hard-fought rights and guarantees afforded to French women.
"During the debates around making abortion a constitutional right, we could well observe how the far-right deputies were very uncomfortable with the subject, they were calling for filling the cribs with French babies," Shirley Wirden, officer in charge of women's rights at the French Communist Party, said as she took part in Sunday's protest in Paris.
Around 13,000 people participated in the Paris rally, according to police estimates. Organisers put the figure at 75,000.
No ‘French exception’
The National Rally, the party of Marine Le Pen, which is now led by Jordan Bardella, denies it has an anti-feminist agenda.
But at the demonstration in Paris on Sunday, participants were not mollified by the far-right party’s assurances.
"When I look at the party's history, you can't say that it defends women,” Morgane Legras, 28, an activist and nuclear engineer at the march told AFP. “They're the ones who are constantly attacking Planned Parenthood," she added.
"Every time the far right comes to power somewhere, it attacks the right to abortion, so I don't see why there should be any French exception," Sarah Durocher, president of Planning Familial, a reproductive rights NGO, told reporters ahead of Sunday’s march.
The rise of the far right in several European nations has increased fears of declining support for women workers as right-wing parties push social conservative agendas.
In Italy, far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has insisted that she won't abolish Italy's abortion law. But her Brothers of Italy party has moved to restrict its application in the regions it controls. Insisting on the need to bolster Italy’s low birth rate, party officials have alluded to the "Great Replacement" theory, a conspiracy suggesting that global elites want to substitute Europeans with immigrants.
When Meloni won the 2022 Italian elections, France's Le Pen was among the first to react to the election win, calling it "a lesson in humility" for the EU.
Read moreWomen’s rights denied: Abortion on the line as Italy’s far right eyes power
In the southern French city of Toulouse, organisers of the women’s rights march said more than 1,500 people had gathered on Sunday afternoon for a show of force against the far right. Law enforcement officials however put the figure at 800.
Similar rallies were held in around 50 cities across France.
"The National Rally is against women, it incites hatred. It is against abortion,” said Sarah, 33, a demonstrator at the Toulouse rally. These are “things that shouldn't even be discussed in this day and age", she said.
A 'de-demonisation' process has some success
France's two-round election system makes it difficult to predict which party could ultimately claim a majority in the lower house of parliament, handing them the prime minister's post which is second in power to President Emmanuel Macron.
Since Macron dissolved parliament after a European Parliament election battering, his centrists are lagging behind the National Rally as well as the leftist New Popular Front (NFP) in the polls.
The National Rally has garnered unprecedented levels of support after a decades-long "de-demonisation" push to distance its image from its roots, which include a co-founder who was a member of the Nazi Waffen-SS paramilitary.
But the core of its message remains hostility to immigration, Islam and the European Union.
Read moreHow France’s far right changed the debate on immigration
Senior National Rally lawmaker Sebastien Chenu gestured towards Muslim and Jewish voters Sunday by vowing not to ban the ritual slaughter of livestock to produce halal or kosher meat.
"Everyone will be able to keep eating kosher meat if they want," Chenu told Jewish broadcaster Radio J.
He added that a historic far-right policy of barring the kippa in public spaces – in the footsteps of an existing law forbidding the full-body burqa worn by some Muslim women – was not top of his party's agenda, saying its priority was to fight "the Islamist threat".
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)
