PARIS — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has discovered her inner feminist following mass sexual assaults in Germany, invoking forebears such as Simone de Beauvoir and Élisabeth Badinter for the first time in a diatribe against open-door migration policies.
There’s just one problem: Feminists want nothing to do with Le Pen.
In an opinion piece published Thursday by French daily l’Opinion [1], Le Pen called for a French referendum on the country’s migration policy and argued that women’s rights were being compromised by an influx of refugees.
Le Pen invoked mass sexual assaults [2] that targeted women on New Year’s Eve in Cologne to blame migrants for a negative impact on women’s liberties in Europe.
“I am revolted today by the unacceptable silence and therefore tacit consent of the French Left in the face of these fundamental attacks on the rights of women,” Le Pen wrote. “I am scared that the migrant crisis signals the beginning of the end of women’s rights.”
While Le Pen is arguably one of France’s most influential women, at the head of a party that won millions of votes in a regional election in December, she has rarely spoken out on women’s issues. Feminists have criticized Le Pen for peddling what they say is a reactionary view of the family, while her niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, came under fire in December for proposing to cut funding to Planned Parenthood in her region, with a petition against her proposal signed by more than 14,000 people [3].
According to local authorities in Cologne, more than 500 women have registered complaints of sexual abuse since the attacks took place two weeks ago [4]. The authorities went on to describe the majority of the suspects in the attack as asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants of “Northern African descent.”
Le Pen seized the opportunity to shine a negative light on immigration, voicing disgust at what she said were clear attacks on women’s rights that were carried out by immigrants.
But, despite references to celebrated French feminists including Badinter and de Beauvoir, Le Pen’s plea fell flat with feminists.
“No, Marine Le Pen is not a feminist,” Rebecca Amsellem, head of the “Les Glorieuses” feminist group, wrote in a reaction piece on the Huffington Post, to be published late Friday. “Simone de Beauvoir’s words are used as an electoral expedient, in order to feed a hatred of foreigners and migrants.”
Marie Allibert, spokeswoman for French feminist group Osez le Feminisme, said that Le Pen’s proposals, including a living wage for women, or letting them stay home to fight unemployment, exposed her as a non-feminist.
“We are horrified and scandalized that this pretend feminist considers herself to be Simone de Beauvoir,” said Allibert.
“The fact that she uses the right of women for racist purposes, and xenophobic, to express herself on migrants, we find that intolerable,” she added.
Nicholas Vinocur and Sofia Melo