French politician Marlene Schiappa posed on the front of this month's French Playboy. Photo / Getty Images
French politician Marlene Schiappa posed on the front of this month's French Playboy. Photo / Getty Images
One of France’s most senior politicians has hit back fiercely after being criticised for posing on the front cover of Playboy magazine.
Social economy minister Marlene Schiappa, 40, wore a revealing dress for the French edition of Playboy.
The country’s second highest-ranking politician, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, said the photo shoot “wasn’t appropriate”.
But Schiappa responded by calling her detractors hypocrites and reminding them that “women are free”.
The contentious cover comes during a time of unrest in France, with demonstrations and strikes against pension reforms pushed through parliament by President Emmanuel Macron.
Schiappa, who was a feminist author before entering politics, served as equalities minister in 2018 and spearheaded laws to criminalise catcalling on the street.
She has also written extensively on women’s health, motherhood and sexuality.
For the April edition of Playboy, she posed fully clothed in a white dress and earrings.
Marlène Schiappa, Secretary of State to Emmanuel Macron, has caused controversy by posing on the front page of Playboy. It doesn't get more French than that. 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/tWwrYInAaF
The cover angered Borne, whose role is largely confined to domestic issues.
She said it “wasn’t appropriate, especially during this period”, reported French TV station BFMTV, apparently a reference to the current protests.
Former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon said the Playboy cover showed “France was going off the rails”.
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said Schiappa's photo shoot was "not appropriate". Photo / AP
Greens MP Sandrine Rousseau echoed Borne’s view that the timing was ill-advised.
“Women’s bodies should be able to be exposed anywhere, I don’t have a problem with that, but there’s a social context.”
But Schiappa brushed off the brickbats.
On the weekend she took to Twitter. “Defending the right of women to do what they want with their bodies: that’s everywhere and all the time,” she wrote.
“In France, women are free. Whether it annoys the detractors and hypocrites or not.”
Playboy France editor Jean-Christophe Florentin said Schiappa was the most “Playboy-compatible” of ministers, because of her work for women’s rights.
“Playboy is not a soft porn magazine but a 300-page quarterly ‘mook’ that is intellectual and on-trend,” he said.
“Mook” is a mixture of a book and magazine, according to Florentin, who added that, while there were a “few undressed women” in Playboy, they did not comprise the majority of the publication.
Interior minister Gérald Darmanin backed Schiappa, saying she was a “woman of character”.
“Marlene Schiappa is a courageous female politician who has her character and who has her style – which is not mine, but I respect it.”
