French President Emmanuel Macron proposed yesterday that women's right to free termination of pregnancy be included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The head of state raised this during the official ceremony of inscribing the right to abortion in the French Constitution, a decision adopted by an overwhelming majority last week, in a joint session of the two chambers of Parliament held in Versailles.
“We will take this fight to our continent, where reactionary forces attack first and always the rights of women, before attacking the rights of minorities, of all the oppressed,” said Macron at a solemn event, outdoors, in Place Vendôme, one of the most elegant in Paris, famous for its jewelry stores, where the headquarters of the Ministry of Justice is located. Behind the president were large photos of feminist fighters such as Simone Veil, Gisèle Halimi and Simone de Beauvoir, among others. Macron evoked the commitment of several generations and recalled a cover of the magazine Nouvel Observateur, dated April 5, 1971, in which 343 women signed a manifesto acknowledging that they had had an abortion. It was a challenge because it was still a crime.
On the occasion of International Women's Rights Day, there were more than two hundred demonstrations in as many French cities, with banners such as the one calling for “Fewer frying pans and more wokes”, in reference to the radical movement against injustice and racism. The unions denounced the wage inequality between men and women that persists in companies and administrations.
