French far-right leader Marine Le Pen suffers backlash from women's groups

Marine Le Pen’s feminist front
Far-right leader suffers backlash from women’s groups for her argument on Cologne attacks.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has discovered her inner feminist following mass sexual assaults in Germany, invoking forebears such as Simone de Beauvoir and Élisabeth Badinter for the first time in a diatribe against open-door migration policies. There’s just one problem: Feminists want nothing to do with Le Pen.

While Le Pen is arguably one of France’s most influential women, at the head of a party that won millions of votes in a regional election in December, she has rarely spoken out on women’s issues. Feminists have criticized Le Pen for peddling what they say is a reactionary view of the family, while her niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, came under fire in December for proposing to cut funding to Planned Parenthood in her region, with a petition against her proposal signed by more than 14,000 people.

In an opinion piece published Thursday by French daily l’Opinion, Le Pen called for a French referendum on the country’s migration policy and argued that women’s rights were being compromised by an influx of refugees. Le Pen seized the opportunity to shine a negative light on immigration, voicing disgust at what she said were clear attacks on women’s rights that were carried out by immigrants. But, despite references to celebrated French feminists including Badinter and de Beauvoir, Le Pen’s plea fell flat with feminists.

“We are horrified and scandalized that this pretend feminist considers herself to be Simone de Beauvoir,” said Albert. “The fact that she uses the right of women for racist purposes, and xenophobic, to express herself on migrants, we find that intolerable,” she added.

http://www.politico.eu/article/marine-le-pen-feminist-front-national-gender-equality-migration-cologne/

The right can be 'born again' feminists when it suits their larger goal of opposing immigration.