Bare shoulders, looking to the left. This preview of the next cover of Playboy France to spark controversy in the country. The reason? Immortalized on the front page of the magazine is the deputy minister Marlene Schiappa, Secretary of State for the Social and Solidarity Economy and, in the first mandate of Emmanuel Macron, Minister for Equal Opportunities. To anticipate the news of the particular cover of the newspaper, which will be released on April 8, was Le Parisien. Schiappa will be the absolute protagonist of the issue: in addition to appearing on the cover, in fact, she will also be on the inside pages with a long interview and other shots in which she defends women’s freedom.
On the other hand, she herself in a tweet has claimed the choice to appear on the cover: “In France, women are free – she wrote in a tweet – With all due respect to retrogrades and hypocrites“. Although the photo on the cover is not yet visible in full, her entourage assures that the minister is immortalized “in a long white dress”. According to a source of the magazine, in at least one of the four photos accompanying the 12-page interview, Schiappa would appear “in a sexy pose and wrapped in the French flag” and the interview would mainly talk about “women’s freedom, feminism, politics and literature ”. In the twelve pages, according to advances, the minister will also talk about violence against women and within families as well as solidarity economy, ecology and global warming. “Wipe – they still say from her entourage – she is the only minister able to answer the questions of a newspaper like Playboy and for this she is the first female politician to star on her cover”.
The prime minister does not think the same way Elizabeth Borne that has phoned the deputy minister to tell her that her interview is “completely out of place in the current context”. And also many of Schiappa’s colleagues, given the social crisis for the pension reform, with the squares literally ablaze against the government, consider the initiative “inadmissible”, according to what is reported Le Parisien.
The left took advantage of the Schiappa affair to attack the government and criticize the communication choices. In addition to the criticized Playboy cover, in fact, the interview given by Emmanuel Macron to Pifa comic periodical dedicated to children and adolescents, and that of the Minister of Labour, Olivier Dussopt, who gave the periodical Tetu an interview in which he reveals his homosexuality. “We are in the midst of a social crisis – the ecological deputy told BFM TV Sandrine Rousseau – there is a public order problem, there are people between life and death and I have the impression that a smoke screen is being created. What respect there is for the French people, people who will have to work two years longer, who demonstrate, who lose days’ wages, who can’t eat because of inflation”. The leader of La France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, added: “Women’s bodies must be able to be shown everywhere, I have no problem with this, but now there is a social problem. In a country where the president expresses himself on Pif and his minister Schiappa on Playboy, the problem would be the opposition… France is going off the rails”.
Within the executive, however, Schiappa’s initiative does not seem to arouse particular surprise given the background of the deputy minister, who has always been close to Macron. Just a month ago, in fact, you had already made headlines by formalizing your relationship with Matthias Savignac, president of Mgen, the mutual company that covers the health risks of National Education employees. According to the rules, some “dossiers” have since been stolen from Marlène Schiappa at the risk of arousing suspicion. At the end of 2021, a video immortalizing her with popular Instagram influencers at the Interior Ministry had raised a fuss. As well as her erotic novels, some written under a pseudonym. According to one of her collaborators, quoted by France Info, Playboy was the straw that broke the camel’s back and Macron “will send her away”. However, she seems convinced of her choice.
