Female journos fed up with lecherous politicians

In an article for Liberation, 40 female political reporters detailed sexist and lewd behaviour suffered while working in the corridors of power

Paris, May 5: Fed up with bawdy remarks and wandering hands, dozens of female French journalists have signed a petition published Tuesday denouncing sexism from male politicians.

“Get your paws off me!” read the front page of the Liberation newspaper, where 40 female political reporters detailed sexist and lewd behaviour suffered while working in the corridors of power. One describes waiting in the heart of the National Assembly only to be greeted by a lawmaker saying: “Ah but you’re on the game, hustling for a client.”

Another mentions a deputy running his hands through her hair, while a minister’s adviser asked a journalist upon her return from holiday if she was “tanned all over”. From a political spokesman taking photos of sleeping female journalists onboard a plane during the last presidential campaign, to a “friend of the President” declaring that journalists are “much more interest- ing when they have big breasts”, the female hacks have had enough.

In the petition, they condemn the fact that little has changed after the downfall of International Monetary Fund chief and presidential frontrunner Dominique Strauss- Kahn, whose notorious sexual appetite landed him in court on several occasions. “We thought that the DSK case had shifted the line and that chauvinist attitudes were on the verge of extinction. Alas!” read the article.

The charges against Strauss- Kahn were dropped but the case revealed details of his often crude behaviour with women, highlighting sexist attitudes from French male politicians. The journalists writing in Liberation also described insistent text messages or phone calls seeking late night meetings, suggestions to pop into a nearby hotel “for a bit of fun.”