Yasmina Kattou, edited by Laura Laplaud 07:42, March 08, 2022

On July 1, 1967, Deputy Neuwirth's bill to liberalize contraception and legalize the pill was examined at first reading in the National Assembly.

It will be adopted on December 19 but it will be necessary to wait until 1972 for all the implementing decrees to be published.

On the occasion of Women's Rights Day, Europe 1 looks back on this anniversary.

After years of struggle, women were finally getting the right to control their fertility.

50 years after the publication of the implementing decree on the liberalization of contraception and the legalization of the pill in France, Europe 1 looks back on this event which changed the lives of many women.

Because five decades later, the French seem to want to get rid of the means of contraception with hormones.

From liberation to straightjacket

What was experienced as a liberation 50 years ago has become a straightjacket for some women.

This is the case of Maëlle.

After taking the pill for five years, she decided that she no longer wanted to inflict a daily dose of hormones on her body.

"I wanted to find out what it was like to live a cycle without this chemical straitjacket that blocks a natural physiological process," she says. 

Maëlle chose another method, that of symptothermie.

She observes, among other things, her temperature and the phases of her cycle to identify ovulation.

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Like Maëlle, many of them are looking for an alternative to hormones.

Laurence Hamou, gynecologist has noticed this phenomenon: "For two years, we have had more and more young women, between 20 and 35 years old who want to get rid of this."

"They have the impression that they are no longer completely in control of their bodies and they have the impression that they are attached to something that constrains them", adds the obstetrician.

To replace hormonal contraceptives, more and more women are turning to spermicides, copper IUDs or condoms, which are used as means of contraception by 20% of French women.