In a woman's life, expenses linked to menstruation average around €8,000*, an amount so high that it sometimes leads the most precarious women to choose between spending on intimate hygiene and spending on food.

It is to denounce menstrual precariousness, which affects 1.7 million women, that the Règles Élémentaires association is launching the "Menstrual Credit". Menstrual Credit" is a poster campaign promoting a credit system for financing menstrual protection, throughout a woman's life. A loan that looks like a real banking product... but doesn't exist!

Menstrual credit may not exist, but the cost of menstruation in a woman's life is a reality: 8,000 euros on average. In France, 1.7 million** women can't afford such an expense and find themselves in a situation of menstrual insecurity... 21% of girls and women declare, according to IFOP, that they avoid going to work or school, or going out during their period. Others choose between eating or paying their bills and buying the sanitary protection they need.

Règles Élémentaires: the association that wants to put an end to menstrual precariousness.

In 2015, Tara Heuzé-Sarmini set up the first association to combat menstrual precariousness: Règles Élémentaires, with the aim of helping these women in precarious situations and raising awareness of this little-known reality. The association has a dual objective: to provide access to intimate hygiene products for the most disadvantaged, and to break the taboo surrounding menstruation.

A banking product that has all the hallmarks of a conventional consumer finance loan

To raise public awareness, the Serviceplan agency came up with this shock campaign: a poster campaign to promote a loan to help finance menstrual protection, inviting people - not without a touch of cynicism - to take advantage of a personalized offer based on "your habits and expectations in terms of menstrual protection, so that we can offer you a loan tailored to your needs", a Menstrual Loan at the exceptional rate of 13.7% fixed APR.

The campaign can be seen from October 29 onwards on a hundred billboards (national Mediatransports network).

* Source: February 13, 2020 information report on menstruation by the National Assembly's Delegation for Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities between Men and Women.

** 1.7 million: the number of women in France who are victims of menstrual precariousness and lack intimate hygiene products (source: IFOP, 2019).