“Abortion, PMA, it’s my body, it’s my choice”, chanted demonstrators who met at the beginning of the afternoon in Paris at Place Gambetta, shortly after the ceremony to seal the voluntary interruption of pregnancy in the Constitution organized at midday at Place Vendôme, in the presence of President Emmanuel Macron and many figures of feminism.
Like every March 8, this demonstration was an opportunity for associations to march to defend women’s rights and equality with men, particularly in the professional world, and to denounce domestic or sexual violence on the occasion of International Women’s Day.
“I wanted to say thank you to Judith Godrèche”
Julie Doidy, 19, a visual arts student, holds a sign reading “THANK YOU JUDITH”: “I wanted to say thank you to Judith Godrèche for speaking like that, her words will free many, it’s super important” , she said, in reference to the actress’s accusations against director Benoît Jacquot in particular.
In this procession in which the LFI deputy François Ruffin participated in particular, there were also activists from the association “We will live”, created after the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7 to denounce the sexual violence committed by the organization’s commandos. Islamist, noted AFP journalists.
These activists, supervised by masked men, were many wearing jogging pants stained with fake blood “in reference to Naama Levy, one of the first women we saw in the images of the attack” of October 7, according to Julie Arfi member of the association.
“Less machos, more clits”
Their slogans of “Free the hostages” were responded to by those of “Palestine will win” launched by other demonstrators. Invectives were exchanged between the two groups, which briefly degenerated into shoving and punching between members of the pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian security forces.
The police intervened to allow the departure of the procession of “We will live” activists. “Our place was right, it had been totally legitimized by the organizers, I am saddened that French Jewish women cannot beat the streets of Paris in the same way as others,” declared Ms. Arfi.
In Bordeaux, some 2,500 people – again, the majority of them women – took to the streets brandishing signs that proclaimed “Less machos, more clits”, “My dog understands when I tell him NO” or even “Look for penis for better pay.
Several Palestinian flags spotted in the crowd
“What’s great about this new generation of young people is that they dare, to speak, to denounce, to act. We feel that the tide is turning, that there is no going back, that the boys too “are involved in this feminist fight”, rejoices Carole, 35 years old and a school teacher, pointing to a group of men who came to demonstrate.
Several Palestinian flags flew above the crowd and on a large banner at the head of the procession, the inscription: “From Gaza to Gironde, with or without papers, we keep society going.” A thousand demonstrators met in Lille, where the Planned Parenthood premises were sprayed on Friday, for the second time this week. The “IVG=death” tag has been deleted, AFP noted.
Pauline, 23, student, demonstrates “for women in countries at war, Afghans, Palestinians”. “We have a lot of privileges compared to other societies. In theory we are not too bad, but we are not equal with men,” she told AFP.