Marlène Schiappa posed for Playboy (dressed). France watches and speaks.

Critics have questioned the junior minister's choice of publication and called the magazine's shooting a distraction amid nationwide protests against a new law on pensions.

For nearly a week, after reports leaked that French Minister Marlène Schiappa was appearing on the cover of French Playboy, the talking heads of the countries debated whether a self-proclaimed feminist should appear in a magazine known for its bare center pages. anti-government protests that lasted for months. Ms Schiappa's colleagues in government rushed to her defense. Others mumbled that they wouldn't have chosen a post stuffed with photos of naked women, but here goes. lead in newsstands.

There was Mrs. Schiappa in a white dress on the cover, her right hand on her heart and on a breast. It was an allusion to painter Eugène Delacroix's symbol of French freedom, leading citizens over barricades, holding a rifle and the French flag, both breasts emerging from her fraying dress.

"It wasn't in our plans," Ms Schiappa's communications assistant, Yenad Mlaraha, said over the phone about the chest injection. "But the idea was to embody that spirit."

In France, where a recent president snuck up on his lover on a moped at night and another had a secret second family while ruling the country, the controversy did not involve morality, gender, or even Mrs. Schiappa's blessing for the trios (both in a government debate and in the magazine interview).

Instead, the media storm focused on the junior minister's publishing choice, and critics called the Playboy shooting a distraction.

"Why did you choose Playboy to advance women's rights when this magazine is a collection of all sexist stereotypes?" Isabelle Rome, the current deputy minister of equality, told Le Figaro newspaper. "Playboy will never be our ally."

Olivier Véran, the government spokesman, told the Minister's discharge: "Marlène Schiappa is leading a fight for women's rights that no one can take away from her or question."

Many also questioned the coverage at a time when the country was rocked by waves of protests against the government's new pension law, which raises the statutory retirement age to 64.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne saw fit to rebuke Ms Schiappa over the phone on Saturday, saying, "It was 'it's not appropriate, especially at this time.'

For the first three years of Emmanuel Macron's presidency, when the #MeToo movement exploded around the world and sparked furious debate in France, Ms Schiappa was the government's minister for gender equality. In July, she was appointed Deputy Minister for the Social Economy and Community Life in France.

A prolific writer, Ms. Schiappa has published 10 books since joining the government in 2017. She has also published numerous erotic titles under a pseudonym, including "Dare the Female Orgasm".

"It is important that our shared erotic imagery not be not written only by men," she told Playboy.

On a 12 page in the magazine, with six pages of interview responses, Ms. Schiappa appears in five photos. ..