Front National populist politician Marion Maréchal-Le Pen railed against feminists in the French parliament who want to shut down pro-life websites calling them “has-been feminists” and “political dinosaurs”.
Ms. Maréchal-Le Pen, who is the niece of Front National (FN) leader Marine Le Pen and a member of the French parliament, spoke in the parliament to denounce the ban.
The proposal for the ban was initiated in December 2016 to stop the spread of “false information” regarding abortions and handing down a potential penalty of a €30,000 fine and up to two years in prison if a site or person is considered to be “intimidating” women.
In her brief statement that lasted just over three minutes, Ms. Maréchal-Le Pen railed against self-proclaimed feminists saying they were passing legislation to justify the continued existence of their cause. “You raise the spectre of threats that do not exist, you raise ghosts,” she said.
Saying that there was no credible threat to France’s abortion laws she continued, “In reality, you are has-been feminists. Political dinosaurs from the ancient times of May 1968.” The May 1968 protests, led by left-wing students and academics, resulted in the fall of then-president and French World War Two hero Charles de Gaulle.
After saying it was great that women had the freedom to both work and access to abortion the FN MP said, “What isn’t great is that any [woman] gets abortions for economic reasons”, citing a study from 2010 that claimed almost half of abortions were performed because of economic factors.
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, French Minister of Women’s Affairs, was next in the crosshairs of Maréchal-Le Pen who accused her of not giving enough support to women who would not otherwise get an abortion if they had economic support and called the minister “the shame of the women’s cause”.
Feminism had been reduced to “sexism in grammar, a pink toy in a happy meal”, Maréchal-Le Pen said, adding that feminists had “lost the plot” on real threats. The real threats, she said, were issues like the migrant sex assault in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2015/2016 and Islamic law which she said was “being enforced in some of France’s districts”.
She slammed feminists’ views of the “patriarchy” and their placing blame on “heterosexual white men”. She also accused leftists of cosying up to Islamists to further their cause adding the alliance was the reason “self-proclaimed protectors of women’s rights” defend the Islamic veil which she called an “Islamic submission tool”.
Leader of the Front National Marine Le Pen currently leads in the polls for the first round of this spring’s French presidential election and the man considered her toughest opponent, Republican candidate Francois Fillon, is facing an investigation into claims he paid his wife €500,000 for a job she did not do.
Le Pen made headlines last week after a migrant camp in Dunkirk refused to allow her to enter, despite allowing celebrity Pamela Anderson in the very next day.