Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Showing posts with label Marlene Schiappa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marlene Schiappa. Show all posts

Friday, April 27, 2018

Cannes film festival to open anti-sexual predator hotline


by Natalie de Vallieres and Biodun Iginla, France24 Entertainment reporters, Paris


    © AFP/File | Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein at Cannes last year

    PARIS - 
    An anti-sexual harassment hotline will be set up for the Cannes film festival next month after disgraced Hollywood tycoon Harvey Weinstein was accused of attacking four actresses at the event.
    The French equality minister Marlene Schiappa said movers and shakers would be warned about their behaviour when they arrive at the world's biggest film festival on the French Riviera.
    "We have set up a partnership with the Cannes film festival to tackle sexual harassment," Schiappa said late Thursday, with a telephone hotline for victims or witnesses to report aggressors.
    "One of the rapes that Harvey Weinstein is accused of happened at Cannes, and so the festival cannot not act," the minister told us at France24.
    Weinstein has been accused of four sexual assaults at Cannes in previous years, including the rape of the Italian actress Asia Argento in his luxury hotel suite when she was 21.
    Schiappa said the measures were being put in place not just to protect actresses but all women working in or around the film industry.
    Although this year's jury to decide the Palme d'Or top prize is being headed by Australian actress Cate Blanchett, Cannes has faced criticism about its attitude to women in the past, with rows over the need to wear high heels on the red carpet.
    In a year when the #MeToo movement has dominated the headlines, only three female directors made the shortlist of 18 competing in the main competition.
    Eyebrows have also been raised by the lifting of the ban on the controversial Danish director Lars Von Trier, who was barred seven years ago for saying he was a Nazi.
    The Icelandic star Bjork said in October that he had harassed her on the set of "Dancer in the Dark", the musical for which she won best actress at Cannes in 2000.
    With only a tiny percentage of Hollywood films directed by women, the French Culture Minister Francoise Nyssen has been calling for women to be given more control behind the camera.
    She and her Swedish opposite number intent to launch a international fund to help women directors during the festival, which runs from May 8 to 19.

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    Saturday, November 25, 2017

    Emmanuel Macron: Domestic violence is 'France's shame'


    November 25, 2017  13H:32  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME
    French President Emmanuel Macron (R) stands next to French Junior Minister for Gender Equality Marlene Schiappa (C) and French humorist and patron of association Women Safe Florence Foresti as he delivers a speech during the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, on 25 November 2017 at the Elysee Palace in ParisImage copyrightAFP
    Image captionMr Macron held a minute's silence for the women who died of domestic violence last year
    by Natalie de Vallieres and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Paris
    French President Emmanuel Macron has spoken out against domestic violence, saying it shames France that a woman is killed every three days.
    In a speech marking International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, he said the silence around the issue must be broken.
    He has made gender equality one of the main themes of his five-year term in office.
    A number of demonstrations are being held across France to mark the day.
    A stock image of a young girl with folded armsImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES
    Image captionOne woman was killed by a spouse on average every three days last year, Mr Macron said
    During his election campaign last year, Mr Macron said that the issue of violence against women would be a priority for his presidency.
    Polls conducted by his then movement, En Marche, suggested that it was the French public's top concern.
    During his speech, Mr Macron observed a minute's silence for the 123 women killed by their partner or ex-partner in 2016.
    Nearly 225,000 women were physically or sexually abused by their spouses, but fewer than one in five filed a complaint about it.

    On-demand bus stops

    Among the measures Mr Macron announced are a 24-hour online service for victims of violence, harassment or discrimination.
    Victims will be able to speak to trained policemen and women to talk about incidents of sexual violence and harassment and find out how to report them.
    An awareness campaign on pornography will be launched in secondary schools and the government will introduce a bill against sexual and gender-based violence next year, he said.
    Mr Macron's proposals include criminalising street harassment, extending the statute of limitation for the rape of children and setting the age of sexual consent at 15.
    Earlier this month, France's minister for gender equality Marlene Schiappa said the government was considering setting a fixed age below which sex was automatically a serious offence.
    Other measures will include an app for victims of online stalking and "on demand" bus stops in the evening, where women can stop a bus anywhere at night so they can get home safely. This service has already been tested in several towns, including Bordeaux.
    International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women kicks off 16 days of activism with sexual harassment as a focal point of this year.

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