• Source:JND
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FRENCH Minister Marlene Schiappa, 40, is being criticised by her colleagues for her decision to appear on the front cover of the Playboy magazine. Schiappa featured on the magazine cover donning a white dress. The Playboy magazine interviewed the French politician on women’s and LGBTQ rights.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and leftwing critics said that Schiappa, who is a minister for the social economy and associations has made a mistake and said that it was not appropriate during this period.

Schiappa took to Twitter on Saturday and wrote, “Defending the right of women to do what they want with their bodies: everywhere and all the time.”

"In France, women are free. Whether it annoys the retrogrades and hypocrites or not,” she further said.

Some of her colleagues in the government who have been battling strikes and increasingly violent protests against plans to raise the retirement age by two years were irritated by this decision.

Several people felt that Schiappa's appearance while wearing designer dresses for a glamour magazine has sent the wrong message as they thought it was an April’s Fool joke when they first heard about it, as reported by the news agency AFP.

Sandrine Rousseau, an outspoken critic of the centrist government, a Greens MP and fellow women's rights activist stated, “Where is the respect for the French people?”.

"People who are going to have to work for two years more, who are demonstrating, who are losing days of salary, who aren't managing to eat because of inflation?” Rousseau said while speaking to the BMF channel on Saturday.

"Women's bodies should be able to be exposed anywhere, I don't have a problem with that, but there's a social context,” she further said.

However, Playboy magazine defended the french minister for the spread which will appear in its French language edition.

Schiappa was the "most 'Playboy compatible'" of government ministers "because she is attached to the rights of women and she has understood that it's not a magazine for old machos but could be an instrument for the feminist cause," Editor Jean-Christophe Florentin was quoted as saying by news agency AFP.

(With Agency Inputs)