The adoption and diffusion of gender quotas in France (1982-2014)

Abstract

Once a country allergic to any type of preferential treatment or quota measure for women, France has become a country that applies gender quotas to regulate women’s presence and representation in politics, the business sector, public bodies, public administration and even some civil society organizations. This article focuses on the process by which, after constitutional battles, the principle of ‘equal access of women and men’ to decision-making bodies was entrenched in the French constitution, and how the institutions created to monitor its implementation provided a support structure for the extension and diffusion of gender quotas from electoral politics to other domains. In a final section the paper assess the strength and weaknesses of the tool of gender quotas in the French context and delineate the factors that can sustain or impede quotas’ effectiveness.