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Home > English > The National Assembly in the French Institutions > Synthetic file 11
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File n° 11
By the ordinance of April 21, 1944, signed by General de Gaulle, Frenchwomen became voters and eligible for election. However, throughout the second half of the XXth century, they have remained under-represented in all French elections and in particular in those to the National Assembly, which had only 10.9% female M.P.s in 1997 and was thus in second last place in this field by comparison with other European countries. By enshrining in article 3 of the Constitution that the law shall promote the equal access of women and men to elected offices and positions and in article 4 that political parties and groups shall contribute to the implementation of this principle, the Parliament, convened in Congress on June 28, 1999, wished to put an end to the under-representation of women in French political life. Following on from this constitutional revision, several laws have been passed which implement the principle of having a balance between sexes in political life: in June 2000, April and December 2003 and January 2007. These laws concern all elections (municipal, cantonal, regional, senatorial, legislative and European) as well as the appointment of the executives of municipal and regional councils. For elections using a list system, the balance between candidates of either sex was relatively easy to impose under the threat of a penalty of non-enrolment of the electoral lists. In the case of single-seat elections, the obligation of a balance was imposed differently (a financial penalty for general elections and a substitute of the opposite sex for cantonal elections).
I. – sexual balance in elections using a list system In elections where a list system is used, considerable progress has been made thanks to the implementation of the laws on sexual balance. The law of June 6, 2000 imposed a sexual balance between candidates upon the drawing-up of lists. It made provision for a male/female alternation for single-round elections (European and proportional representation senatorial elections) and an alternation for every group of six candidates for two-round elections (regional elections and municipal elections in municipalities of over 3,500 inhabitants). The laws of April 11, 2003 (regional elections), December 18, 2003 (councillors for the Assembly of Corsica) and January 31, 2007 (the municipal elections in municipalities of over 3,500 inhabitants) have imposed a principle of strict male/female alternation on lists for all elections. From its very first application, the law of June 6, 2000, saw the number of women elected increase substantially. After the elections of March 2001 in municipalities of over 3,500 inhabitants, 47.5% of municipal councillors were women as opposed to 25.7% in 1995. At the partial renewal of the Senate in September 2001, 20 women (i.e. 27.03%) were elected among the 74 Senators (out of 102) elected by proportional representation with an obligation of sexual balance. At the March 2004 elections, women represented 47.6% of those who became regional councillors as against 27.5% in 1998. In June 2004, of the 78 French MEPs elected to the European Parliament, 34 of them (i.e. 43.6%) were women. By the end of 2006 however, only 37.3% of the vice presidents of regional councils and 36.8% of the deputy mayors were women. It could have been expected that, given the increase in the number of female regional and municipal councillors in municipalities of over 3,500 inhabitants, women would have been represented in similar figures on their executives. As a result, the law of January 31, 2007 broadened the obligation for sexual balance to the election of the executives of regional and municipal councils for municipalities of over 3,500 inhabitants (strict male/female alternation on the lists for members of the standing committee of the regional councils; sexual balance of candidates on the lists for the vice presidents of regional councils and for deputy mayors) as well as elections for the members of the Assembly of French People Abroad.
II. – sexual balance in single-seat elections 1. – The general elections The law of June 6, 2000 provided for financial penalties for political parties which did not apply the rules on sexual balance for candidates but its implementation had only limited effects. This law modified the law of March 11, 1988 concerning the financial transparency of political life and introduced an adjustment in the public aid given to parties which took into account the respective proportions of male and female candidates. The first part of this public aid was decreased when the gap between the number of candidates of each sex declaring themselves members of the party in question exceeded 2% of the total number of candidates. The percentage decrease was equal to half the gap in respect of the total number of candidates. Thus if a party put forward 30% women and 70% men, the gap was 40% and public aid was decreased by 20%. At the general elections of June 2002, where this 50% rate applied, the parties put forward 38.8% female candidates but only 12.3% women were elected to the National Assembly. This represented a slight progress by comparison with the general elections of 1997 (10.9% women). The parties clearly preferred to give up a part of the public aid allotted to them annually. The UMP thus lost 30.3% of the first part of this aid, the PS and the PRG 15.4%, the UDF 30.1% and the PCF 6.2%. In order to provide the political parties with a greater incentive, the law of January 31, 2007 raised the percentage of the decrease in public aid to 75% of the gap in respect of the total number of candidates. So, to take the previous example again, public aid will be reduced by 30% if a party only puts forward 30% female candidates. This new percentage however will only be applied after the first general renewal of the National Assembly following January 1, 2008.
2. – The cantonal elections For cantonal elections, imposing a financial penalty was difficult because of the number of elected officials not belonging to any political party and on account of the absence of the reimbursement of electoral expenses in certain cantons. These elections were therefore not included in the reform of June 2000. At the 2004 elections, which thus had no legislative constraint, only 10.9% women were elected as departmental councillors. To enable a growing number of women to progressively sit on departmental councils and to avoid the holding of by-elections too frequently, the law of January 31, 2007 introduced substitutes for departmental councillors and imposed that the office-holder and his/her substitute should be of opposing sexes. Today all elections are subject to legislative measures increasing the sexual balance between candidates. Very encouraging results have been obtained in elections using a list system. For single seat elections the balance should be improved when the law of January 31, 2007 begins to take effect.
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