Women's group calls for "unconditional asylum" in France for Afghan women

In an opinion piece published by Le Parisien daily newspaper, more than a thousand French women have called on President Emmanuel Macron, to "welcome" Afghan women and their families "unconditionally", as a fourth plane carrying exiles from Kabul landed in Paris on Friday evening.

Afghan women arrive at the military base in Torrejon, Spain, on 20 August 2021. © AFP/Mariscal

Women writers, activists, politicians, well-known women and ordinary citizens have co-signed the editorial piece which appeared in Le Parisien on Friday.

This comes as French nationals and Afghan citizens wait to be evacuated from Afghanistan, overrun by the Taliban last week.

Among the first 50 signatories are writer Virginie Despentes, director and actress Agnès Jaoui, candidate in the ecologist primary Sandrine Rousseau, former minister Cécile Duflot and transgender philosopher Paul B. Preciado.

For this text, the women signatories, "of all divergences, all schools, all social and political spheres" say they have put aside their differences. 

They decided to "bury the hatchet" to participate in this "wave of solidarity" which is comparable to the #MeToo movement, denouncing sexist and sexual violence against women. 

"Emmanuel Macron does not speak for us"

"Faced with the absolute danger of rape, submission and death, for a country that claims to be a country of enlightenment and democracy, there is no other choice but to offer asylum without conditions," says the text, devised by six activists, who first used Facebook to share it with the title "Emergency for Afghan women and their loved ones".

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"Emmanuel Macron does not speak for us when he talks about French people who are worried about a new migratory flow: we are worried, on the contrary, that it will not happen and that our Afghan sisters, and their loved ones, will die with their throats slit, raped, massacred in Afghanistan," they add.

"While men are playing geopolitics, we are here to remind them that women are writing to us from Afghanistan, telling us that they are going to die. It is up to us to show them that democracy and the values of the Republic are better than the Taliban regime", underlines Nadia, a tutor for disabled students, one of the six people behind the collective.

The text was published as a fourth plane carrying a hundred people, including 99 Afghans and four French nationals, landed in Paris on Friday evening, according to the French Foreign Ministry.