Marie-Charlotte Garin

“I don’t know what I’ll be doing the day after tomorrow. I want to be useful. That’s all.”

France has its very own A.O.C.—and, at 30, she’s pushing forward some of her country’s most contentious gender issues

By Monique El-Faizy

Like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Marie-Charlotte Garin has her roots in environmental activism and was elected to national office in her 20s. And, like Ocasio-Cortez, she exploded onto the political scene seemingly overnight. In the few years since her 2022 election to France’s National Assembly, where she serves as the Lyon deputy, Garin has been the driving force behind the country’s adoption of a consent-based definition of rape and, as of this month, abolishing the concept of sex as a marital duty.

Though not as relentlessly visible on social media as Ocasio-Cortez, Garin has been no less deliberate in cultivating her READ ON