Birth rates have fallen across Western Europe. In France, as in a number of other countries, the birth rate is below the replacement rate. This is the reason why European countries have turned to immigration to provide workers and to support their native populations as they retire. This policy has produced mixed results, at best.
So it is easy to understand why western leaders would want to encourage population growth. In France, Emmanuel Macron is trying to raise the birth rate, a policy that has “sparked uproar.”
During a press conference on Tuesday, Macron said France needed to pursue what he called “demographic rearmament”.
The president pledged to offer a better parental leave and combat infertility – which he called “the taboo of the century”.
Sounds reasonable. Parental leave is a modest way to encourage childbirth, and infertility is a problem for many couples. What could possibly be wrong with trying to combat it?
Just ask the feminists–and, to be fair, leftists in general:
“Leave our uteruses alone,” Anne-Cecile Mailfert, head of the Women’s Foundation, said on X, formerly Twitter.
The CIDFF, an association that helps women and families, expressed “deep concern.”
“The implementation of natalist policies, profoundly contrary to the autonomy of women, constitutes a worrying political and social regression,” the association said.
That’s a new one on me: “natalist policies.”
Left-wing politicians also slammed the proposals.
“Women’s bodies are not a weapon,” said Alexis Corbière, a lawmaker with the left-wing France Unbowed (LFI) party.
In her criticism of Macron’s plan, Green party leader Marine Tondelier evoked Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” portraying a dystopian future in which women are enslaved by men.
Enslaved by men on account of parental leave and efforts to relieve infertility? And, has any work of fiction, in all of world history, been a source of more stupidity than that idiotic “Handmaid’s Tale”?
It would seem reasonable for France to want there to be more Frenchmen, but that is now a “far right” position, apparently:
By contrast, the far-right National Rally (RN) welcomed the pledge to boost birth rates, with spokesman Philippe Ballard calling for a “family ministry” in France.
How far right can you get?
Feminism, having achieved all of its original, reasonable, goals, has become not just useless but perverse. Now feminists consider the idea that women should be encouraged to have babies–the unique power of being a woman–to be outrageous.
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