Overview
- Feminist groups, including the Feminist Strike collective, demanded a public apology and a clear condemnation of sexist and sexual violence from the first lady.
- Government spokesperson Maud Bregeon called the remark spontaneous and urged critics to leave her alone, while Assembly president Yaël Braun-Pivet decried the wording yet warned against undermining presumption of innocence.
- Former president François Hollande criticized the language as vulgar and said public figures should seek calm rather than escalate verbally.
- The video, first posted by the magazine Public and amplified by #NousToutes, followed an action in which activists wearing Abittan masks disrupted his Folies Bergère show chanting accusations.
- Abittan’s 2021 rape case ended in a non-prosecution order later upheld on appeal, and Macron’s entourage said her comment targeted what they viewed as radical disruption methods, as France Insoumise renewed calls for Emmanuel Macron to resign.