French government engages in ‘general mobilization’ against pro-life activists

Following a spate of attacks against premises belonging to pro-choice organizations, the French government has said there is a “general mobilization” against the actions of pro-life movements and activists.

The Minister Delegate for Gender Equality, Aurore Bergé, spoke in the National Assembly earlier this week, denouncing the actions of the groups that have particularly targeted northern France since abortion was constitutionalized in 2024.

“[T]hose opposed to rights and to choice have never backed down in our country. They continue to vandalize, threaten, intimidate, fund, and attempt to mislead young women who simply wish to access their freedom, now constitutionally guaranteed,” she said.

Bergé said she was in “very regular” contact with the president of the Family Planning Association, a feminist organization that argues for the right to abortion and has had many of its local branches vandalized recently, to “ensure the protection of its facilities.”

She said there was a “general mobilization” for “our freedoms, our rights, our choices, to access abortion everywhere in the territory, support for our associations and a very clear fight against those who prefer to disinform, disorient, manipulate and who in France must not be able to win.”

Alongside providing protection for facilities, Bergé also said “the resources allocated to associations have more than tripled over the past ten years—although it is true that funding from some local authorities has sometimes decreased.”

Bergé was speaking in response to a question from French MP Sandra Regol, who said that Family Planning centers had been attacked six times in the last five years, including a center in Strasbourg which was covered with graffiti saying “Planning assassin.”

“Employees are afraid, and a climate of insecurity hangs over activists, as well as over those who rely on Family Planning services throughout the country. The work of this organization is therefore being put at risk,” Regol said.

In May 2025, the far-right collective Eros launched a cyber campaign against the Family Planning collective in Alpes-Maritimes, which included targeting staff and volunteers.

Eros disseminated a video about Family Planning’s involvement in the Nice Rainbow Festival—a public LGBTQ+ festival—alleging that children were being exposed to inappropriate content, including nudity and pornography.

In response, Family Planning Alpes-Maritemes said they were going to take legal action, and Christian Estrosi, who was mayor of Nice at the time, filed a complaint with the public prosecutor.

A constitutional right

In March 2024, France became the first country in the world to enshrine the right to abortion in its constitution after it passed in parliament by a vote of 780-72.

The French Catholic bishops’ conference responded by calling for “fasting and prayer,” having also said abortion “remains an attack on life from the very beginning,” and “cannot be seen from the sole angle of women’s rights,” in the build-up to the vote.

The Pontifical Academy for Life also denounced the French parliament’s decision, saying “There can be no ‘right’ to end a human life.”

“All governments and religious traditions,” a statement by the academy said, must “do their best so that at this stage in history, the protection of life becomes an absolute priority, with concrete steps in favor of peace and social justice and with effective measures for a universal access to resources, education and healthcare.”

In 2023, abortions in France went up by 3.7 percent to 243,623 — 8,600 more than in 2022 — with 678,000 babies being born that year.

Speaking after the vote to enshrine abortion, the French bishops’ conference said “of all European countries, even Western Europe, France is the only one where the number of abortions is not decreasing and has even increased over the last two years.”