Poland’s ruling party leader has sparked outrage and mockery by claiming the country’s declining birthrate was partly due to binge drinking by women.
Opposition politicians accused Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a 73-year-old lifelong bachelor, of being out of touch.
They said the Law and Justice Party leader, Poland’s most powerful politician since 2015, was anyway himself partly responsible for the relatively low birthrate in the nation of 38 million.
Critics pointed to restrictions on abortion that have discouraged some women from seeking to get pregnant. Others noted that young people are put off raising families due to the cost of living in a country where inflation is now nearly 18 per cent.
As part of a tour of the country to drum up support ahead of next year’s elections, Mr Kaczynski told an audience on Saturday he does not favour “very early motherhood” because a woman must mature before having children.
But, he added, if that young women drink to excess up to the age of 25, then “it’s not a good prognosis in these matters”.
He continued: “And here it is sometimes necessary to say a little openly, some bitter things. If, for example, the situation remains such that, until the age of 25, girls, young women, drink the same amount as their peers, there will be no children,” said Mr Kaczynski.
He added that the average man “to develop alcoholism has to drink excessively for 20 years” and “a woman only two”.
“I am really a sincere supporter of women's equality, but I am not a supporter of women pretending to be men, and men pretending to be women, because this is something completely different,” he said.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
