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Marlène Schiappa: "We must rethink the question of family leave"

2020-06-06T19:59:18.725Z


The Secretary of State for Gender Equality proposes the creation of a leave for those who need to help their sick parents


She wants to "do more". Two weeks after his colleague from the government in Public Accounts, Gérald Darmanin and his "I want to weigh" in the JDD, Marlène Schiappa in turn comes out of the woods. Two personalities, two styles, but a common goal: to stand out and place his pawns while rumors of reshuffle are rustling after the municipal elections and now the last straight line of the quinquennium is playing out.

Like many ministers at the moment, Schiappa has therefore phosphorus to draw out his shock proposals too, just to inspire the executive for the future, and in particular Emmanuel Macron who seeks to “reinvent himself” after the Covid crisis -19.

Between the lines, we understand that the 37-year-old secretary of state would not say no to a full-service ministry, extended to the Family. She advocates for a project allowing a better balance between professional life and private life. With key measures, such as this leave to care for sick parents or another tailored for grandparents still active at the birth of their grandchildren, and the extension to one month of that granted to young fathers…

What pave the way for a rebalancing of government policy when the ministers from the ranks of the right are the most active and the most audible. And that act II of the five-year term promised after the Yellow Vests crisis did not translate into the implementation of major social or environmental reforms, however, demanded by the left wing of the majority.

In the 5th arrondissement of Paris, Florence Berthout joins forces with LR. Are you still comfortable in this campaign?

MARLÈNE SCHIAPPA. I respect Rachida Dati as a person, but she represents a hard right and her proposals do not suit me. Joining forces when sharing a project like in Bordeaux is positive. In Paris, this is not the case.

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According to Le Point, you estimated in an SMS that "no one thinks that Agnès Buzyn will be elected mayor of Paris" ...

No interest in commenting on private remarks, distorted and taken out of context, which actually related to the campaign strategy.

Does the emergence of two dissident groups in the Assembly sign the need for political clarification?

It is above all a sign that everyone wants to wear their favorite themes, but the common denominator remains loyalty to the President of the Republic. That identities assert themselves is rather healthy. As long as the individualities do not crush the collective and vice versa ...

And who do you feel closest to?

From LREM. I am a walker from the start, a pure Macronist. Obviously I have a leftist sensitivity, it is my political origin. But we must get out of dogmas. The danger is that everyone returns to boxes.

Can Gilles Le Gendre stay at the head of the group? ( Editor's note: the president of the LREM group at the Assembly has been in turmoil since the publication of his notes on the reshuffle at Macron )

I am not a parliamentarian, it is not up to me to choose the president of the group!

Marlène Schiappa does not take a dim view of the creation of dissident groups in the National Assembly./LP/Olivier Corsan  

"Weighing" seems to be a buzzword in government. Is this also your wish?

For me, the question is not so much to weigh as to know for what to do. I want to do more. I want to do more for women and for families.

With a full-service ministry?

I told you, I want to do more and therefore wear more things. But the President and the Prime Minister will decide where I am useful.

Concretely, what do you want to embody, wear in government?

I want to continue the work started on gender equality, that this issue remains a priority for government and society. The pandemic period has also reshuffled the cards, notably on our relationship to work and time. I think that we have to think about questions of harmony between professional and family life.

What lessons do you learn from the period?

In times of crisis, the family is a safe haven and the first place of solidarity. Confinement exacerbated it. With the crisis, it will be necessary to produce and therefore to work a lot. This must be accompanied by support for the time spent with the family, especially for the sandwiched generations, who must take care of both their children and their parents! As we started to do with the creation of caregiver leave, we need to rethink the question of family leave. This has not been done since Ségolène Royal in 2002, 18 years ago.

What do you propose ?

In three generations women have won the right to go to work without asking for permission. What if the right for men to devote themselves to their homes remained to be conquered? I propose that the extension of paternity leave to one month be included in the law, as 300 French companies did spontaneously.

What else are you considering?

Family leave is very centered around the time when one becomes a parent. However, family responsibility runs throughout life. Sociologist Jean Viard notes that the family now has one more generation. Today, a woman becomes an average grandmother around age 54. Many grandparents are still active! We saw during confinement how crucial their role is. Furthermore, families today are chosen and plural.

What do you conclude from it?

As there is sick child leave, one could consider sick parent leave. You are still active, you need three days to take care of your elderly parents… In the same way, why not create a leave for young grandparents, to allow to visit his grandchild at birth? Open these rights to blended families? This debate must be opened.

Marlène Schiappa would like to reflect on the creation of sick parent leave and the extension of paternity leave / LP / Olivier Corsan  

Some believe that it will be necessary to earn less to save more jobs or to work more. How do you position yourself?

I see a lot of Pavlov's reflexes. Each brings out his totem from the drawer, for or against: the ISF, the 35 hours ... This is not the issue. On the contrary, we must bring new proposals. The reflection around the "time bank" proposed by the economist Marc Ferracci must, for example, be able to integrate these issues of work / life balance.

You talk a lot about family, an attribution that is not in your ministerial portfolio. Is this a field you would like to take care of in the future?

Honestly, this is already partly the case since I have taken concrete actions with the government such as the opening of maternity leave for all women regardless of their status. I chaired for ten years the Mom network works, writes books on this subject, created the Nursery Transparency Pact… This is one of the subjects on which I work, yes.

A new rally was held this Saturday against police violence. How do you see this movement?

What is important is that a bond of trust exists between the police and the population. Christophe Castaner and Laurent Nunez work there every day.

An investigation has just been opened on a Facebook group made up of nearly 8,000 police officers. Do you think there is a problem of racism in the police?

The Republican police are people hired to protect citizens, especially women, from domestic violence. But let's not be candid, there may be racist police: they have no place in the police! This is why the Minister of the Interior decided to seize the public prosecutor.

Do you fear the emergence of an unexpected candidacy, that of Jean-Marie Bigard, for example, in 2022?

I think there is no illegitimate candidacy. I am not comfortable with the idea that an intelligentsia decides who has the right to enter the political circle or not. Anyone can stand for the presidential election, in accordance with the conditions of the Constitution. In 2017, we ourselves embodied an alternative to the system in place for 30 years.

Do you think, precisely, that you have demonstrated this in the exercise of power?

I think we can better prove our uniqueness.

According to Marlène Schiappa, racist police officers have no place in the police. / LP / Olivier Corsan  

When we look at the family photo of the majority, one thing has not changed: the key positions are all occupied by men ...

I share this observation. Gender equality is like ecology, in theory everyone supports the principle, but when it comes to yourself, making efforts becomes difficult.

Should a woman access the Elysee Palace for this to change?

These are men, the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister, who carry the great cause of the quinquennium and the granary of domestic violence. Having a woman at the head of the state is not necessarily a guarantee that it will further advance other women. We need more sorority between women in power!

Source: leparis

All news articles on 2020-06-06

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