Several complaints were filed by different municipalities after the appearance of tags and damage on symbolic places.
Symbolic targets. While this Friday, March 8, 2024, the inclusion of abortion in the French constitution was officially sealed during a public ceremony organized at Place Vendôme, several anti-abortion actions were recorded across the territory.
The most symbolic: the one organized in La Roche-sur-Yon, in Vendée, by the far-right movement Action Française. Dozens of demonstrators, who filmed themselves, vandalized the statue of Simone Veil, who had the law decriminalizing abortion in France adopted in January 1975.
Red powder was poured into the pond next to the statue, and anti-abortion leaflets were pasted up. In addition, bloody dolls were placed at the foot of the bust of the one who entered the Pantheon in 2018.
“Simone Veil is a character who has marked the republic and who, therefore, displeases those who are both anti-European and anti-abortion,” the Horizons mayor of the Vendée city, Luc Bouard, told BFMTV. According to France Bluethe municipality decided to file a complaint.
In Grau-du-Roi, in the Gard, it was an avenue plaque, once again in the name of Simone Veil, which was torn down and thrown to the ground. Again, a complaint was filed.
Targeted family planning
Also on Friday, the date of International Women’s Rights Day, it was the local Lille branch of family planning which was targeted. For the second time in the space of a fortnight, the place was tagged: “Abortion = murder”, “Murderous planning”, we can read.
“We are not afraid, we will continue to defend this right, we will continue to fight because abortion has always been a story of struggles. We are a place open to all, without discrimination, and they can’t stand it,” Véronique Séhier, head of family planning in Lille, told BFMTV.
A complaint was also filed.