Meet Marlne Schiappa, the 34 -year age-old blogger and novelist at the heart of Emmanuel Macrons revolution
The walk from the Gare du Nord across the Seine to Frances centre of power, a string of builds off the Quai dOrsay, takes a pleasant, circuitous hour: the route is a sightseers dreaming. But for Marlne Schiappa, Frances freshly appointed equal opportunities minister, the streets of Paris are the frontline in a campaign between the sexes. Where I find boutiques and fresh fruits and vegetable stallings, cafes and splendid architecture, Schiappas eye is drawn instead to the idling boys ogling young woman; to the handsome displays in every pharmacy window advertising weight-loss answers Minceur Th Vert( Slimming Green Tea ), Ventre Plat( Flat Stomach and illustrated by photographs of delighted young lady using a tape measure as a hop-skip rope. France is paradoxical, Schiappa tells me. We are the country of Simone de Beauvoir, of feminist theory and doctrine. But we are also a Latin country with entrenched stereotypes.
She greets me warmly in what must have once been a grand dining room; the parliamentary district in the 7th arrondissement has not changed much since its vast manors were to construct nobility in the 18 th century. It is the day before Theresa May will satisfy Emmanuel Macron, Frances youngest ever chairperson, who assumed office on 14 May. At 39, with no campaigning experience, Macron has surrounded himself with young cabinet members who are new to politics, as a route of making a clean break with his socialist predecessor Francois Hollande. This week he made businesswoman Florence Parly minister for the armed forces( defence for four of the EUs five largest economies is now overseen by girls ); he has appointed Tv presenter Nicolas Hulot as environmental and social transition pastor( the equivalent of Theresa May devoting David Attenborough a cabinet post ).
But Macrons most controversial appointment is Schiappa, at 34 a very young member of cabinet ministers, whom he has put in charge of equality between men and women, with a brief to tackle the gender pay gap and improve womens rights in the workplace. A former advertising executive-turned-author, shes best known as a campaigner and blogger, and has outraged Frances right wing with her unapologetic feminism.
She demonstrates me into her airy, high-ceilinged office where we sit on new modern chairs, her replacement for the stuffy furniture that used to be here. This is the room where Schiappa has begun drag in public figures to call them out on sexist behaviour( and then tweet of determining whether the meeting aimed satisfactorily ). She wears gold hoop earrings, her long, thick mane drew back in a loose knot, and is friendly and straightforward in a way thats still rare in top-level politics.
Schiappa was of the view that Macron did particularly well with female voters in the presidential elections. Why does she think that is? He was the first to say, Im a feminist. Second, because he believes in parity in parliament. Precisely half his cabinet is female. Plus, she mentions, unlike other legislators, he went out and listened to people. Really listened.
Schiappas first objective is to tackle sexual harassment on the street. Its a huge phenomenon in France. Its that moment when a man is walking behind a woman, talking to her, and the woman can do nothing, because shes alone. She doesnt scream for help, because she believes, Its not that bad, Ill walk, Ill escape. Men feel its acceptable: theyre being the French devotee. Females are molested on public transport so frequently, Schiappa says, that many will dress in ways to avoid it before they use the Mtro or bus. Its enough of a number of problems that the previous government launched an anti-harassment campaign called Stop: Thats Enough to encourage people to report any incidents. In France, if a woman is sexually assaulted, her first think is, Now Im dirty and no one will ever want to marry me the social responsibility of the victim.
Her solution is on-the-spot penalties. Macron has pledged to expand the police force by 10,000 over the next five years: why not give them powers to police sexism in the same way they do smokers who fell their cigarettes? Twenty euros would be a bit humiliating, 5,000 would be more of a discouraging. At the moment, many boys are telling, Its not a big deal, were only having fun. And we say, No. She says shell be nailing down a precise strategy with the justice secretary soon.
Schiappa intends to take a similarly radical approach to closing the pay gap. In France, girls earn between 12% and 27% less than boys, is dependent on sector. Her proposal is that major companies will be invited to consult privately with the governmental forces on answers. Those who reject is likely to be named and shamed.
She is also keen to discuss what she describes as Frances culture of rape. Minimising rape or finding apologizes, she elucidates, before offering two examples. The former vice president of the National Assembly, Denis Baupin, has been accused by eight women of sex crime and he wasnt burnt. Baupin denies the allegations, some of which date back 15 years, and has cease his role after pressure from political leaders and the press. No accusations were brought because the statute of limitations had expired( in France, it is just three years for sexual harassment instances ).
The French media does not assist, Schiappa mentions: You never say the word rapist in an article in France. You mention, A wife has been raped or A female who claims to have been raped. They never mention, A boy raped a woman. Its to hide the rapist. Its victim-blaming.
Another part of Schiappas brief is to tackle homophobia a huge task, as illustrated by a meet she had last week at the town hall in Le Mans. I was talking about a proposal around LGBT rights, and one man, an elected official from the far right, mentioned, You forgot the Z. I asked him what he entailed. LGBTZ, he told. Z stands for zoophile. The official objective up making a donation to a LGBT association. As minister for equality, its business as usual for me. Theyre everywhere. Theres no need to insult them in return. We have to fight them and protect our notions, but more loudly.
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Schiappa first entered politics in 2014, when she stood as a candidate in the municipal elections in Le Mans, her home suburbium. She was elected and became deputy mayor, in charge of gender issues and a engineering project. The following year, she fulfilled Macron, then minister of the economy under Hollande, at a French engineering event. She mentions she met him on merely 13 more occasions before the government occupation was hers. In the intervening years, she worked in what was then “ve called the” Ministry of Family, Children and Womens Rights, where she drew up a new measure to introduce greater transparency in nursery applications( the French system is riddled with dishonesty; waiting lists are long and there are widespread accusations of bribery and favouritism ). When Macron launched his presidential campaign last August, Schiappa was quick to subsistence him.
Schiappa is Corsican, and grew up in a multiracial council manor north of Paris. She has said she became a feminist at 13 when she realised how, unlike her parent( a leftwing historian ), she was unable to walk the streets unharassed; she and other women in the neighborhood would plan self-defence strategies. Her father-god presented her how to make a knuckle-duster out of her home keys.
She currently has two daughters aged 10 and five; her husband( whom she maintains out of the public eye) co-wrote some of her volumes. When she had her first daughter, she was working in advertise. The women around me, they had one, two, three children; they were in fulfills really late in the day. I was asking, How do you do this? How do you look after your children when you are working that hard? I envision running moms has been a big theme in the United Kingdom for a long time, but in France it was not. There was no ministry of womens rights at the time, and it was not in the public debates. I began the blog[ Maman Travaille] and then set up a support network of working moms, to talk and to put together proposals for politics and companies.
The blog was a hit, in part because the head of Yahoo in France had children, enjoy it and promoted it online. Word spread; Schiappa was interviewed in French Elle, in Madame Figaro. She left advertising to spend more time with her daughter, then began writing novels. She joined another ad organization, but got pregnant again, so I left. She wrote more, expanding her repertoire to non-fiction volumes on motherhood and feminism; names include Letters To My Uterus and Who Are The Rapists? A novel she published in 2014, No More Than Four Hours Sleep A Night, is being turned into a film.
Schiappa debated Marine Le Pen in 2012, at a symposium arranged by French Elle. She was talking about what the extreme right called comfort abortion she devised the expres mentioning there were women having abortions 10 or 12 times a year and that the government poor white people was paying for it. The French far right is known for its combating racism and xenophobia, but less is said about its misogyny. Marine Le Pen wanted to stop state-funding for abortions, Schiappa mentions. Two members of this house wrote a proposal to ban females from running. When you are a woman who is from the suburb, and you are young, and you are to the left of politics, youre unacceptable. But the radical right has insulted every single woman before me.
How does she believe a woman rose to the top of such a misogynistic party? Two reasons, Schiappa says: Because she adopts a masculine style. She speaks aloud shes hollering, shes hollering; she wants to humiliate the person or persons she is talking to. And because its their own families business. If you are a woman and your name is not Le Pen, you cannot have a career in the Front National. Its family before women rights.
Of all Macrons new cabinet members, Schiappa has depicted the nastiest criticism. The right wing is especially irritated by her beliefs on Frances sexually predatory and chauvinistic male culture. Critics dislike her plans to introduce government maternity cover for self-employed females, and to make artificial insemination available for lesbian, older and single girls( its currently available only for heterosexual pairs ). They are squeamish about other campaigns: earlier this year, she was part of a group that told French mothers are being treated as felons for choosing to bottlefeed rather than breastfeed. Some have impounded on one of her more light-hearted volumes about motherhood, in which she advised ladies how to prolong maternity leave( humorously, she tells ): Make yourself ugly, come across as traumatised, exaggerate everything; she was encouraging women to defraud the state, her critics argued. She has not escaped censure from the left, either accused of committing has become a masculiniste( anti-feminist) for a volume she wrote more than a decade ago in kudo of the sex power of overweight women.
In the three articles Le Figaro write about Schiappa in the week I gratify her, they claim, variously, that she is the woman to save French politics; that she has an adolescents addiction to social media; and that she is a tl-feministe for posting an online video interviewing women in Paris about their experiences of sexual harassment. But the Fachosphre[ the fascist internet] and its appendages can continue their neverending flow of dislike, Schiappa tweeted last week. It will never stop me from running!
She is frustrated that some of the culture myths about French wives persevere: that they dont get fat; that French babies sleep through the night; that French toddlers dont throw food. All of that is not true, Schiappa tells, riled. But we hear it everywhere. Of course French women are all different weights, and weight is a contribution of discrimination. What the bestsellers on French women and their supposed perfection totally miss, she tells, is Frances sexist way of life. She says that married girls are still expected to abide by their devoir conjugal, or conjugal duty to have sex. Sexism travels top down: Ccile Duflot[ a Green legislator] was catcalled in the National Assembly because she was wearing a dress with buds on it. The posture, even at the very top is, Cest la vie.
Schiappa supports the ban on religion garment in schools, but has also argued that moms should be permitted to enter school grounds in a veil, otherwise they would be ostracised from “their childrens” education( they are now allowed to by law ). But she warns against too much religious tolerance. Feminism can be obstructed by the banner of anti-racism. For example, how people denied what happened in Cologne[ when there were large-scale sexual assaults on New Years Eve 2015 ]. Feminism cant have ideological roadblocks. Will her brief include Muslim communities? You know, in France, we dont should be considered communities. We are a revolutionary French Rpublique. There is just one community. This is a French law, the separation between faith and country. Its a statement that I doubt is widely shared across France.
When she was a freelancer, scarce childcare intended Schiappa would often take their own children to meets. As deputy mayor, she made a phase of leaving project punctually at 4pm to do the school operate. At first, I said to myself, Oh my God, Im rude. Then women came to say, Thank you for doing that, because now we are doing the same thing. So I guess, if you have the power to induce these things visible, it is necessary, because other people will benefit. When youre on a salary, its hard to tell your boss or colleagues, Hey, Im bringing my child to the session. But I used my power because I get to decide.
Schiappa is concerned with domestic equality, too, she mentions. We started with public life, and now we have to change professional and private life. People dont crave the government to enter the home and tell men to rinse the dishes. But equal opportunities is good for men, she argues. Many father-gods dont take their 11 days paternity leave, because they are afraid of losing their jobs.
Macron has acted rapidly on his pledge to create equality in parliament: he fielded equal number of male and female candidates in this months election, and appointed a gender-balanced cabinet, with 11 of 22 posts taken by ladies. Last weekends elections returned the most important one ever number of girl politicians( 38.5% of the seats ). We have a female minister of athletic who is a former champion[ fencer Laura Flessel holds the record for the most medals won by a French girl Olympian ]. And Im glad we have a woman as defense minister, because I can tell two daughters, You can fight even if you are a woman you are able to make war, you can make peace, too. Now we have four women for every 10 people in parliament. Before Macron, it was two in 10. More ladies means its going to be more unacceptable to catcall a woman if she wears a flowery dress to work.
Half of Macrons new politicians are complete unknowns, reflecting a wider change in politics in the west. This is a rejection of the creation that Schiappa is proud to be part of. Yes, more people from civil society are coming into politics, she says. I think we realise that we need real people , not theories or abstractions. This is real life we tell it like it is. What does she say to those who say she lacks the political experience to hold both governments post? Well, she chuckles, I have life experience and I think its quite enough. And we know now that people with political experience dont have much success. The country is not in a good nation. So let us try.
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