This Friday, March 8, International Women’s Rights Day, will be the occasion of a rare moment in France: the placing of the seal on the Constitution where the freedom to resort to abortion will now be mentioned, a first in the world.
• Read also: France becomes the first country to include abortion in its Constitution
• Read also: France will become the first country to include abortion in its Constitution
The ceremony for the sealing of the revised Constitution will take place from noon (11 a.m. GMT), in the presence of President Emmanuel Macron, in front of the Ministry of Justice, Place Vendôme in Paris. It will be accessible to the public, also a first.
The president, who must speak, wants “a popular ceremony, as open as possible”, according to his entourage, in order to mark “the culmination of this collective fight”, after the approval on Monday by Congress of the inscription of the “guaranteed freedom” to resort to abortion.
France is the first country to explicitly include voluntary termination of pregnancy in its Constitution.
The press with which the seal will be affixed dates from 1810. Usually placed in the office of the Minister of Justice, it has been used to seal 14 texts since 1958, the birth date of the Fifth Republic, including the law on the abolition of the death penalty in 1981.
Previously, Emmanuel Macron will flower the tombs of “great figures” of feminism who contributed to the revision of the Constitution, including Gisèle Halimi, Joséphine Baker, Louise Michel, Simone de Beauvoir and Simone Veil.
For the feminist associations, invited to the ceremony, March 8 is first of all “the opportunity to take to the streets” to defend the rights of “poorly paid essential employees”, “first on duty” and “women victims of violence,” says Anne Leclerc, member of the National Collective for Women’s Rights.
Around fifty organizations, including associations and unions, are also calling for a strike on work and domestic tasks, like those which took place in Spain or Iceland, to demand measures in favor of equality women-men.
Demonstrations are planned in nearly 200 locations in France, in large cities such as Paris, Bordeaux (southwest), Lyon (center-east) and Marseille (south), as well as smaller ones.
The demonstrators will denounce in particular wage inequalities. Female employees earned on average 23.5% less than men in the private sector in 2022, INSEE (National Institute of Statistics) recalled on Tuesday, a gap which can only be partly explained by “the slightest annual volume of work of women”, less often employed and more part-time.
For the same working hours, the average salary of women remains 14.9% lower, because they work in “less paid” sectors and positions.