AFP has not been able to confirm this from an official source.

Sarah Durocher, the head of the French women’s rights group Family Planning, told AFP that some contraceptives have already left the Belgian warehouse.

“We were informed 36 hours ago that the removal of these boxes of contraceptives had begun,” Durocher said on Thursday.

“We do not know where these trucks are now — or whether they have arrived in France.

“We call on all incineration companies not to destroy the contraceptives and to oppose this insane decision,” she added.

– ‘Absurdity’ –

Since Trump replaced Biden in the White House in January, his administration has dismantled USAID, with help from his former adviser, the world’s richest person, Elon Musk.

French disposal company Suez, meanwhile, told AFP that it “does not provide waste management services for all contraceptive products purchased by USAID”.

The US plan has provoked outcry in France, where rights groups and left-wing politicians have called on their governments to prevent the contraceptives from being destroyed.

“France cannot become the scene of such operations — a moratorium is essential,” said an opinion article in the newspaper Le Monde on Friday signed by five NGOs including MSI Reproductive Choices, condemning the “absurdity” of the US decision.

Charles Dallara, the grandson of the politician who legislated in favour of the contraceptive pill in France in 1967, went on French television on Friday to urge President Emmanuel Macron to act.

Macron has yet to make an official statement on the contraceptives, but the country’s health ministry has said it is “closely monitoring the situation”.

A petition launched by French feminist groups and unions on Wednesday calling for the contraceptives to be saved has been signed by more than 10,000 people.

AFP