• With the updating of “sexist and obsolete” legal and legislative texts, the princely government of Monaco is moving towards equality between women and men.

  • Since the creation of the Committee for the Promotion and Protection of Women's Rights in 2018, many changes have already been observed, although there are still other battles to be fought.

  • One on which no further progress can be made: abortion.

    Catholicism being a state religion, decriminalization was the maximum the National Council could do.

On May 5, the National Council of the Principality of Monaco adopted a bill which aims to abolish or modify 85 legal and legislative texts for better equality between women and men.

A “symbolic” measure for French and Monegasque associations which recognize that the developments are going “in the right direction” but which would like actions to go further.

For three years, the state's legal services analyzed 12,000 texts to identify "obsolete and sexist" terms.

A bill presented under the Committee for the Promotion and Protection of Women's Rights whose president is Céline Cottalorda.

"The desire was to update our texts so that they stick more to the society of 2022, whose lifestyles have evolved compared to these texts written in the past", she develops.

The inter-ministerial delegate for women's rights cites a few examples: “We have abolished this notion of dotal regime which stated that a woman was inferior to a man.

In the semantic obsolescences, we have corrected the fact that a woman cannot be a notary or a bailiff.

In fact, this has been the case for years.

And in technical or scientific obsolescence, we have removed this period of widowhood which required widowed or divorced women to wait 310 days before remarrying to be sure that they were not pregnant by their previous husband and thus ensure the paternity of the child.

»

“Legislative changes create changes in mentalities”

For the representative of the Committee, changing laws is “a necessary basis for equality between women and men”.

She continues: "It's not just symbolic, it's deeper because it helps to advance the issue of women's rights among other actions that can be taken."

Other actions are to come, such as the release of a statistical study, carried out since 2019, on wage inequalities between women and men, to subsequently put measures in place.

A first in the Principality.

For Vibeke Brask Thomsen, director of the Monegasque association SheCanHeCan, "legislative changes create changes in mentalities" but for the revision of the texts, she believes "we should not say thank you".

“It's a correction of something that was wrong so it was essential and necessary.

It's even the minimum to do that.

An opinion shared by the Family Planning of the Alpes-Maritimes which finds that "any progress is good to take", but that this one "is a little weak".

For the legalization of abortion, "we are reaching a limit"

Since its creation in 2018 under the impetus of the #MeToo era and to meet European requirements, the Committee for the Promotion and Protection of Women has enabled several advances within the Principality.

Thus, paternity leave has been lengthened, the notion of “head of household” has been modified, thus allowing women to also receive family allowances, the fight against violence against women has intensified.

"We want to show that in Monaco too, as elsewhere, we are concerned about women's rights," says Céline Cottalorda.

The Principality wants to take part in this fight.

It is not because we are in a territory of 2 km2 with a certain standard of living that we are exempt from it.

»

In these changes, the Committee also worked on the decriminalization of abortion.

Thus since 2019, the voluntary termination of pregnancy is no longer criminalized but it remains illegal, doctors not having the right to practice it.

For the interministerial delegate for women's rights, this is “enormous progress” but she remains lucid: “We cannot go further and have legalization.

We are reaching a limit because Catholicism is the state religion.

»

"We grow up in a city where we don't have the right to resort to abortion"

The Monegasque feminist association recognizes that the National Council has gone as far as it could with this decriminalization.

“Abortion is still accessible for Monegasques because they don't need to fly and it is possible to find ways to get reimbursed.

The real problem is that on paper, you grow up and evolve in a city where you don't have the right to resort to this practice, only in the event of rape, fetal malformation, illness or danger to the mother's life.

»

According to information from

20 Minutes

, contraception and abortion can be subjects covered in class during interventions on sex education while specifying the specificities of Monegasque law.

It is then on the other side of the border, in the Alpes-Maritimes, that the care takes place.

Family Planning 06 “regularly” receives women who would like to end their pregnancy.

Claire Moracchini, marriage and family counselor of the departmental association, recalls that for minors, "care is free at the Archet hospital center in Nice".

She also points out that, for adults, there are not only gynecologists who can perform a medical abortion, “midwives and general practitioners also have training and do not take excess fees”.

Books

Nice: “Being a feminist has consequences”, launches Fanny Vedreine, author of “How feminism will ruin your life”

Culture

Nice: Talking about books and feminism, a source of "empowerment" for these women who meet at the Book club

  • Company

  • monaco

  • Abortion

  • Womens rights

  • gender equality

  • Feminism

  • Paca