On International Women’s Day, Paris launches equality plan

Paris, March 8, (dpa/GNA) – More protection against violence, better health care, more opportunities in the workplace: The French government wants to promote equality for women with a number of measures presented on Wednesday, International Women’s Day.

Paris plans to establish by next year, a women’s shelter for victims of violence in each of the approximately 100 French departments, or administrative districts.

In the future, special units for domestic violence are to be set up at the courts. Victims of domestic violence and their children should be able to receive immediate protection by court order within 24 hours, according to the plan.

The government outlined its proposals in a document called the Interministerial Plan for Equality Between Women and Men (2023-27).

Paris also promises better support for miscarriages. Psychological support is to be strengthened, and victims should receive compensation payments more quickly if they are unable to work.

In addition, the government wants to improve health care for homeless women.

In professional life, France wants to exclude companies that do not provide information about gender equality in the company, or do not perform adequately on this point from public tenders.

French President Emmanuel Macron, later said he wants to anchor the right of women to abortion in the French constitution, and thus make it irreversible.

A corresponding amendment to the constitution is to be initiated in the coming months, Macron said in Paris.

Previously, the National Assembly and the Senate had already backed the plan to amend the constitution, which must be sealed in a referendum. Macron’s announcement now speeds up the procedure.

Abortion was legalized in France in 1975.

The effort to enshrine the right to abortion in the constitution, follows the tightening of abortion laws in the United States.

The European Parliament also wants to include the right to abortion in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union as a result.

Macron announced the desire to include the freedom of women to have abortions during a commemoration of the French women’s rights activist Gisèle Halimi, who died in 2020. Her commitment influenced legislative reforms to legalize abortion.

GNA