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Anti-abortion posters pop up in Paris metro during election campaign

by Anna Pujol-Mazzini | @annapmzn | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Wednesday, 26 April 2017 11:48 GMT

Young women carry signs as they attend an anti-abortion protest in Paris, January 19, 2014. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

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"This is a large-scale guilt-tripping of women in a public space" -Raphaelle Remy-Leleu of rights group Osez le Feminisme.

By Anna Pujol-Mazzini

LONDON, April 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Anti-abortion posters urging French election candidates to protect unborn foetuses have appeared in the Paris metro ahead of a May 7 run-off presidential vote.

The posters, which were displayed in the public transport system illegally, used pictures of five presidential candidates, including centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen who will face each other in the second round of voting.

One poster featured a picture of anti-immigration Le Pen next to a caption: "Don't close the borders on our lives".

Over 200,000 abortions are performed in France every year, according to the national statistics agency.

Another poster focused on Macron said: "France has to give everyone a chance. So give us a chance to live."

Women's rights groups expressed anger at the campaign.

"This is a large-scale guilt-tripping of women in a public space," Raphaelle Remy-Leleu, a spokeswoman for the French women's rights group Osez le Feminisme ("Dare to try feminism"), told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"It's a big concern that anti-choice organisations have the financial means to launch such campaigns," she added.

Metro operator RATP said in a statement it had been victim of a "malicious act," with posters displayed without its approval, and were working on removing the posters.

"The survivors", an anti-abortion group which produced the posters, is a collective of French people born after 1975, when the French law legalising access to abortion was passed.

Their name stems from a belief that every person born in France after 1975 had around a one in five chance of not being born due to the rate of abortions in the country.

They condemned the "damage" caused by the display of posters in the metro by likely members of their organisation, but praised a "campaign that shows French people that (the fight against abortion) is a national issue."

(Reporting by Anna Pujol-Mazzini @annapmzn, Editing by Ros Russell. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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