Madame Figaro
.
- What value does
International Women's Day
have today
? Charlotte Montpezat.-
If it has any value today, it is to ask the question, at least once a year: where are we?
Is there still progress to be made?
That of reminding us that we must take stock, from time to time, of women's rights.
We often say to ourselves “that’s completely stupid, we’re only going to think about women once a year!”
But I think that this day can only disappear when it seems totally obsolete, when we say to ourselves “this story is totally ridiculous”.
At that point, yes, okay, we can make it disappear.
Not right away, then.
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How can we get different generations of women to talk and understand each other?
They must cross paths, they must meet.
It seems to me that the company is a great place to bring them together and interact.
The world of culture is too.
We should also, in a wonderful world, stop opposing and caricaturing generation gaps.
Young people are always seen as young people with young people's problems.
And as soon as we're over 50, we're old and we have old people's problems.
I'm over 50, I have problems that are perhaps the same as those of young people, I'm going to have heart problems, employment problems, problems accessing an apartment, we share things.
And here I only talk about problems, but we can also share good things.
We can like the same singers, go to the same concerts, see the same films, the same shows.
What do you think are the next steps for women?
First of all, what would be good is for us to respect what was said before, what we said we would do.
I spontaneously think of equal pay for example, it has been in the law for some time, but it is still not applied.
So it's good to have new progress, but I think we also need to consolidate what has already been done.
This is also the meaning of the inclusion in the Constitution of the right to abortion: to confirm what we have acquired.
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Which women still need to be saved?
Between Afghan women, Iranian women and women over 50 in poverty, my heart is torn.
We still have a lot of work in many different areas, there is no shortage of topics.
The question of the economic precariousness of women over 50 seems to me to be one of the most delicate.
There is progress regarding the questions of their representation, their image;
we talk about it, things are moving forward, the media are doing their job.
But there remains something very impressive: the poverty figures for women over 50 around the world.
We are obviously talking about Afghanistan and Iran, but also the United States, where it is the poorest category of the population.
What else must we affirm?
We can assert our strength, our desire for equality, our desire for equality or parity, our right to be, quite simply, what seems daunting, and yet essential.
What does the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution represent?
In an ideal world, we would already respect what is enshrined in the Constitution.
It seems to me that the 1st article says this: “The law promotes equal access for women and men to electoral mandates and elective functions, as well as to professional and social responsibilities.”
If we did that, it wouldn't be bad, wouldn't it?
Once again, we are delighted that there are new things included in the Constitution, but there is a fairly impressive gap between the texts and reality.
The law is there to show the way, of course, but it would be good if we followed the path.
What memory could you tell us that is linked to women's rights?
It's not a memory, because I'm not that old, but in 1945 we had the right to vote.
Let's remember that in Afghanistan, women had the right to vote in 1919. Which means: let's be careful.
We can always come back to women's rights.
It’s even, in general, the first one we come back to.