French minister Marlene Schiappa is facing criticism from her own party for posing in a white dress for the cover of Playboy.
The politician will appear on the cover of the magazine’s French edition fully clothed, alongside a 12-page interview she gave on women’s rights and LGBTQ+ issues.
Leaked photos show Ms Schiappa wearing a white dress, complete with the headline “A liberated minister”.
Ms Shiappa has long campaigned for gender equality and spearheaded a French law banning cat-calling and the harassment of women.
Who is Marlène Schiappa
Ms Schiappa, 40, is the current minister for the social economy and French associations. She has held a series of eminent roles since 2017, including secretary of state for gender and equality, and minister delegate in charge of citizenship.
She was the youngest cabinet member in Mr Macron’s first term in office, aged just 34.
Prior to government, she was deputy mayor of the city of Le Mans, where she took charge of gender equality, before becoming a delegate to the department of Sarthe for La République En Marche!
Ms Schiappa has published several books on feminism, alongside dozens of others on sex and erotica under the pseudonym Marie Minelli. Her popular titles include Dare to Have a Female Orgasm, Good Girls Don’t Swallow and Indecent Marriage.
But the minister, who will appear in the 8 April Playboy issue, is not the first French politician to star in the publication.
National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen gave an interview in the 1980s, saying he had refused to pay his ex-wife Pierrette alimony, adding: “If she needs any money, all she has to do is clean.” His wife hit back by posing half-naked in a maid’s costume.
How did colleagues react?
Ms Schiappa’s decision has prompted criticism from politicians in France as the country is rocked by widespread unrest at president Emmanual Macron’s reforms to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Green MP Sandrine Rousseau told TV channel BFM: “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.
“Women’s bodies should be able to be exposed anywhere, I don’t have a problem with that, but there’s a social context.”
French prime minister Elisabeth Born has also reportedly told Ms Schiappa that the cover is “not at all appropriate”.
And politicians Jean Luc Mélenchon also criticised Ms Schiappa’s appearance in the publication and Mr Macron giving an interview to children’s magazine Pif Gadget.
On Saturday night he tweeted: “In a country where the President expresses himself in Pif and his minister in Playboy, the problem would be the opposition. France is going off the rails.”
However, defending herself in a post on Twitter on Saturday night, Ms Schiappa said: “Defending the right of women to dispose of their bodies is everywhere and all the time.
“In France, women are free. With all due respect to the backsliders and the hypocrites.”
