Sapiosexueller Macron Minister poses on Playboy cover

A Playboy title side with one of the top Minister of Emmanuel Macron in the leading role has become the latest scandal that shakes the government of the French president.

While Paris is on fire, the approval values are falling and a parliament is revolting, Mr. Macron is now fighting with the episodes of a 12-page interview with Marlène Schiappa in the notorious magazine.

The decision to pose for the Playboy caused criticism within the former erotic author's own party, including Ms. Schiappa's boss, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.

Ms. Schiappa, the blunt state secretary for social economy and confessed "sapiosexual", 40, was considered "the most playboy-compatible" minister of the government, said Jean-Christope Forentin, the publisher of Playboy France.

Ms. Schiappa, a productive activist who has become a politician, said she reported to give the interview in order to explain everything from feminism, violence against women and women's rights to politics, global warming and literature.

While Ms. Schiappa appears fully clothed on the cover and on the 12-page double page, she poses seductively with the French flag wrapped around it, reports Le Parisien, which broke the story.

Possiped photos show the Minister of Government, who wears a long white dress with one shoulder in a picture and on another voluminous white dress with a bow, under the heading "A liberated minister".

The critics of Ms. Schiappa described their appearance as an artificial distraction and embarrassment for their party.

According to the French media, Prime Minister Ms. Borne even insulted Ms. Schiappa on Saturday and told her that "it is inappropriate", given the current context of the protests on the pension reform that the country shaked in the past three months. Ms. Schiappa has not clarified the interview with Ms. Borne.

"I thought in advance that it was April Fool's joke," said Ludovic Mendes, colleague of Ms. Schiappa's Renaissance Party, in an interview with BFMTV.

"I can understand the feminist struggle, but I don't see why we should do it in the Playboy. There are other ways to do it."

Members of the opposition also quickly insulted them and described the cover shoot and the interview as the latest diversion maneuver from the controversial pension reforms that have been mobilizing protests throughout France for months.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the chairman of the left, named Mr. Macron's interview with the children's magazine PIF Gadget as another example of an inappropriate priority in the current crisis.

"In a country in which the President speaks in PIF and his Minister Schiappa in Playboy, the problem would be the opposition," said Mr. Mélenchon in a sarcastic comment that was posted on Twitter. "France gets out of joint"

Ms. Schiappa was also unable to find allies in other feminist politicians such as Sandrine Rousseau, the Green MPs, who repeated similar feelings and described the appearance as "disrespectful".

"We are in the middle of a social crisis, there is a topic about maintaining order, there is people between life and death and it feels like there is a fog wall with Têtu, PIF Gadget and Playboy," said Ms. Rousseau to BfMtv.

Ms. Schiappa defended her Playboy cover and called her critics Heuchler.

"The defense of the right of women to control their bodies is everywhere and at any time. Women are free in France," she wrote on Twitter. "With all respect for the renegade and hypocrites."

Ms. Schiappa, 40, has made headlines several times since Mr. Macron got out of the dark in 2017, and had several top-class titles, including State Secretary for Gender and Equal Opportunities and ministerial delegated with responsibility for citizenship.

she made headlines when she was in office in 2021 because she described herself as sapiosexual, a person who finds intelligence sexually attractive.

The heroine in one of her books calls the former Prime Minister Alain Juppé, 77, the sexiest man of France.

In addition to several books on feminism, Ms. Schiappa has also published a dozen books about sex and eroticism under the pseudonym Marie Minelli. The titles include everything from Dare to have a female orgasm and Indecent Marriage to how to turn your guy into brad pitt in 30 days and good girls don’t swallow.

After leaving the advertising, Ms. Schiappa started a mother blog and then entered politics as deputy mayor of Le Mans in 2014, where she also dealt with gender equality. At the age of 34, she was the youngest cabinet member of the first term of Mr. Macron.

Although Ms. Schiappa is the first politician who appears on the cover of Playboy France, she is not the first woman in French politics who poses for the magazine. In an interview with the Playboy in the 1980s, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the right-wing extremist party Front National, said he refused to pay his ex-wife Pierrette maintenance, and added: "If she needs money, everything she has is clean." Ms. Le Pen returned by posing half-naked in a maid outfit.

Ms. Schiappa will be released in the issue of the magazine of April 8, two days after France mobilized his 11th day of the national strike against pension reforms that raise the retirement age from 62 to 64