It is a sequence that would illustrate, according to part of the left, the divisions within their own field. Sandrine Rousseau was booed copiously on Sunday afternoon during a Paris rally in support of Iranian women. Other elected officials were able to express themselves more easily, such as the rebel Manon Aubry or the former Minister for Women’s Rights, Laurence Rossignol.
In the middle of a rally, the deputy from Los Verdes tried to speak for a few dozen seconds to denounce “the violence and totalitarianism that is exercised against women”, before hanging up the microphone, under the anger.
Asked about this episode in France inter this Monday morning, the ecofeminist argued that “three women of the left” -Manon Aubry, Laurence Rossignol and herself- “had been whistled” during this Parisian rally.
“Do not try to board us on your ship”
Laurence Rossignol did not like being quoted in such a way and called her comments a “lie” on her Twitter account.
“Let Sandrine Rousseau assume her positions and not try to get us all on her ship!” responded the former minister of François Hollande, responsible for several years for women’s rights in the government.
“Feminism is good when it is far away”
The march organized on Sunday in Paris was aimed at supporting the mobilization of tens of thousands of people in Iran who have marched in recent days to condemn the crackdown. The country is in the middle of a great social crisis since the death of young Mahsa Aminiarrested by the morality police for an ill-fitting veil on September 13, before dying in a cell three days later.
After the jeers of the demonstration in the capital, Sandrine Rousseau wondered about “the protesters’ intentions to whistle”.
“I always have the impression that feminism is good when it is far away and that when it is in France it is less acceptable”, remarked the elected official in France inter.
“An ambiguity on the part of the left”
Would the controversy show two opposing visions of the use of the veil in France with, on the one hand, feminists who defend the right to dispose of one’s own body for women, including the use of the veil if done freely, or other feminists who are totally opposed to its existence?
“There is an ambiguity on the part of the left that finds it difficult to designate Islamism by calling it by name. If Iranian women take off their veils, it is because it symbolizes a whole system of exclusion and inferiorization of women”, Laurence Rossignol responds to BFMTV.com. The former minister sees in the Parisian protesters “people who have memory.”
Sandrine Rousseau had already been the subject of a controversy over the veil last November during an advertising campaign for the Council of Europe. The institution promoted portraits of various young women, half veiled, evoking “freedom in hijab”. “There are many reasons to wear a veil and there are those who wear veils that are just an adornment,” the environmentalist had reacted then on the set of PCL.
A precedent with the 2019 march against Islamophobia
A few weeks earlier, in the midst of the internal campaign of environmentalists for the presidential election, he declared that he saw “in the veil, the burqa” “macho clothing”, while judging that “women are never forced to emancipate themselves” by a possible ban on these religious symbols.
Esther Benbassa, also present at the demonstration on Sunday, clarifies this ideological opposition among the protesters.
“There are protesters who told me that the veil was not defended. Others told me: ‘France is not Iran,’ ”says the ex-environmentalist who herself had been singled out for her presence during a march against Islamophobia in 2019.
This demonstration had already torn the left apart and provoked outcry from the government and the extreme right. the very notion of “Islamophobia” as much as the identity of certain signatories of the appeal had led part of the left not to join him, the PS or the PRG.
Esther Benbassa refutes the explanation and sees rather in the boos against the Parisian deputy the questioning of her career. “Perhaps people are just tired of listening to the priestess of feminism,” Esther Benbassa replies, lamenting the controversies of recent weeks, between the Julien Bayou case, “the right to laziness” and the roast, “sign of virility” .
“No confusion from the left”
Manon Aubry, who saw her party’s name whistled before she could express herself without difficulty at the end of the demonstration, has a completely different view of the atmosphere of the demonstration.
“They booed us because the demonstrators wanted concrete announcements to support the Iranians. That is the reason. And let’s stop acting as if there is confusion on the part of the left. In France, no political power forces women to wear the veil, to unlike Iran where it is an election imposed by the mullahs”, advances the MEP.
The elected rebel will present on behalf of her group in the European Parliament a resolution proposal to fight against the current regime in Iran using different means of sanction.
“People were upset because we were the only ones present and therefore the only ones to be held accountable,” continues Manon Aubry.
“Eat your dead”
No LR, Renaissance or RN MPs were present at Sunday’s procession, nor were they a member of the government. In a role of international mediator, Emmanuel Macron discussed at length with Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in late September.
The divisions of the left are, in any case, subject to scrutiny. Marine Le Pen reacted to a cheep of the rebel deputy Danièle Obobo who calls on “people who exploit the struggle of women in Iran” to “disqualify the struggle of women in France” in order to “eat their dead”.
“Rebellious France: how far will they go?” replied the president of the RN deputies on the social network.
Source: BFM TV
