Pornographic or sexist representations will have to disappear from the custody rooms, in consultation with the interns.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
It is a closing practice that persists on the walls of the hospitals of France and that the government wants to see disappear. Establishments which shelter frescoes of a pornographic or sexist nature in the custody will have to withdraw them, in “consultation” with the interns, according to a ministerial instruction consulted by the agency France-Presse (AFP) Wednesday January 25.
This decision is part of the “zero tolerance policy” displayed concerning “moral or sexual violence against health students”, argues an instruction from the Directorate General of the Care Offer (DGOS ). This note, dated January 17 and revealed by the Information site Hospimedia , underlines that “several closed or in progress disputes” have targeted frescoes. Seized in summary proceedings by the association Dare feminism! In the name of the “dignity of women”, the Toulouse administrative court thus ordered in December 2021 the withdrawal of certain decorations of the daycare rooms from the city hospital (CHU) of the city.
In 2015, in Clermont-Ferrand, a fresco representing a collective rape between superhero had aroused controversy after “bubbles” of texts were added, implicitly designating the Minister of Health Marisol Touraine as the character central. She had to be erased. Since then, hospitals have spontaneously withdrawn or modified from murals, “sometimes in an opposition climate of the interns”, notes the ministerial document.
The withdrawal imposed by the ARS in the event of disagreement
Even today, part of the carabins (medical students) remain attached to gut and grotesque representations under a tradition appearing anachronistic today. Sexual “rifle frescoes” still put on the walls of certain establishments. In 2017, these frescoes were found in twenty-five in thirty rooms in Ile-de-France and some sites in regions.
Noting an absence of consensus on the subject, the Ministry of Health asks the hospitals concerned to “organize the withdrawal of all the frescoes of a pornographic and sexist nature in a calendar which spares consultation” with the representatives of internal. In the event of persistent disagreement, regional health agencies (ARS) will be able to “impose” the disappearance of these paintings.
Questioned by AFP, the National Intersyndicale of Interns (ISNI) does not oppose these directives but requests “that means be released” to ensure the conservation of frescoes with heritage interest, for example in Hospital museums, as has already been done.
“Our guard rooms must remain places of life: these rare places should not be abused where interns can exorcise a daily life,” said Olivia Fraigneau, president of the ISNI. Above all, this representative calls on the authorities to “seize the opportunity to finally renovate the boarding schools and no longer ignore the disastrous conditions in which (…) interns” are hosted.