When Olimpia Coral received the invitation to that feminist diplomatic meeting, she could not imagine that that evening she would find herself sitting at a table “in front of the president of France, just one meter away”. Nor that “she toasted him looking into our eyes”, says the promoter of the Mexican law against digital violence that bears her name.
Twenty-one personalities from journalism, the academic world, artists and activists had been invited to the event, organized by the French embassy as part of Emmanuel Macron’s official visit. A private dinner, “very intimate”, she describes, the same day in which the bilateral agreement between Mexico and France to consolidate feminist diplomacy as foreign policy was formalized and which took place in the Colegio de San Ildefonso in the Historic Center, the legendary cradle of intellectuals. “But traditionally they were all gentlemen. And this time we were almost all women,” Coral says.
Among the other members of the table, the vast majority of whom were women, were the deputy and former president of Congress Olga Cordero, the journalist Marion Reimers and the influencer La Chávez. In addition to the president, “who joked that he was a minority in that meeting, there were only two other men”, recalls the activist, invited to the event to have received the 2025 Franco-German Gilberto Bosques prize for human rights in recognition of her fight against digital violence. Also for having participated in the Action Summit held in Paris at the beginning of the year, where its application, called Ley Olimpia AI, was recognized as one of the 50 most innovative in the world in the field of Artificial Intelligence. “It is the first in the world created by victims of digital violence to help other victims,” he says proudly.
In that unique dinner, held in an illustrious patio framed by the art of the main exponents of Mexican muralism, in which French wine was drunk – first white, then red – and a menu prepared by the collective Women of the Earth, Women of the peripheryThe French president will spend nearly two hours listening to guests’ concerns about the challenges faced by women in Mexico, but also voicing their concerns.
Macron focused his speech on the decline of democracies, “which has led to today’s digital spaces and social networks”, defining them, according to Coral, “places without freedom or reasonableness that lead to a distorted debate of ideas”. His thesis, explains the activist, “was that the debate on ideas had been delegated to social networks, which constitute a data monopoly where money is earned through personalized advertising”. According to the activist, the French president also stated that “the formation of public opinion is being lost by letting digital companies shape it through an infrastructure that is no longer free, honest or ethical”.
Among other issues about women’s rights and freedoms, “Macron talked about his rejection of porn culture and the objectification and perfection of female bodies. And from there the polarizing algorithm began to talk about the prejudices it represents,” says Coral, who, she acknowledges, felt so comfortable in the conversation that at one point she even took off her shoes “so she could pay more attention.” As he recalls, the French president will make “a statement directed against the United States and against Elon Musk, to demand the immediate elimination of unauthorized information and transparency of the algorithm. It is not freedom of expression to let Elon Musk decide what content we should see,” he said. Identifying with those words, Coral used them again to explain that the algorithm the president was talking about was, in fact, “the patriarchal algorithm” that she and her colleagues were fighting against, “a computer system of inequality that has biases between women and girls. And that these patriarchal biases have a monopoly on data about the objectification of women,” she recalls telling him.
The activist also spoke to her about the results of his struggle, “that we organized ourselves as victims and made 39 laws all over the world, that Olimpia is not just a law, but a political movement to be safe even on the Internet”, she says proudly. And it provided him with some data on digital sexual exploitation markets. “Porn pages and other digitized spaces where intimate sexual content is disseminated, distributed, managed and organized without people’s consent,” he says. In Latin America, he assures, “there are 2 million visible markets for sexual exploitation, plus those of the so-called “Getpages”, which can range from private WhatsApp and Telegram groups to open groups. And that the social network where this type of sexual exploitation markets is most widespread is precisely X, that of Elon Musk,” he states.
Dressed for the occasion in a purple satin dress combined with earrings of the same color “to give a clear feminist message”, Coral knew how to exploit each of the opportunities of that “very powerful” meeting – as she remembers it – to give visibility to her struggle and strengthen it. Denounce the inertia of digital companies when it comes to stopping violence against women to the French president. To let the French president know that 70% of the cases reported under the Olympia law that have not had access to justice are due to the inertia of companies. “And that’s why, even if we had impeccable law, if digital companies weren’t forced to do so, and if we didn’t make extraterritorial and geopolitical efforts, women will never get justice!” he states.
Then, she reveals, she replied “that international cooperation between social networks and digital platforms was necessary. Macron also said that we must ask the algorithm. Exactly what we are doing with the Olympia movement, ask the algorithm, change the code!”, she says, still emotional.
Being so close to the greatest French authority, promoter of the implementation of one of the most feminist laws in Mexico in recent decades, I would like to tell you part of my experience. He will confess that when he was the victim of that digital violence, “one of the countries where his video appeared the most was France. How could I think I could stand in front of the president of France and tell him that my videos were released in his country and nothing was done?” he asks.
That night, after listening to her, Macron promised her that “France would do everything possible to generate international geopolitical claims. Then I expressed the desire that this coalition with Mexico really comes true for a feminist foreign policy. I also thanked him for being on the right side of history”, says the activist Olimpia Coral: daughter of Josefina, granddaughter of Teresa, great-granddaughter of Olimpia, great-granddaughter of Leonila and Pánfila, daughter of Abigail sister; a survivor of digital violence. How he introduced himself to the president as soon as he met him.
As the diplomatic meeting drew to a close, courageous and determined, Coral took advantage of what would have been her last chance and took out two purple scarves with which she made Macron pose for a photo which she then uploaded to her networks. Then, he took the president’s hand and gave him a handwritten sentence that he had translated on his cell phone during dinner. “We agree, the patriarchal algorithm must be abolished,” said that piece of paper which Macron read with a knowing smile, folded slowly and then put it in his pocket.
