Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

The French people and the French State are, for the most part, extremely proud of their revolutionary history and the motto of the revolution – Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood – lives on as the motto of France today.

Yesterday the French Socialist Party elected Madame Ségolène Royal as its official candidate for next year’s presidential election. The fuss surrounding her candidature over the past year has been, or should have been, a real eye-opener for those who take the ‘equality’ bit of the motto at face value. Comments from old stalwarts in the Socialist Party have included such gems as ‘ if she becomes President, who will look after the children’!

Ok, you might not be too shocked by that. It’s all part of the knock-about of politics isn’t it? Well yes, but the issue goes much deeper than that in French society. As examples, women in France were awarded the right to vote only at the end of the Second World War, 20 years later than in Britain. In France, only 4.5% of company directors are female. In China the figure is 20%. The Assemblée Nationale (the National Parliament has only 71 female representatives out of a total of 577. In a league table of female inclusion in national politics, France lies 74th in world, behind – and this is truly staggering – Iraq and Afghanistan.

And yet, the people we talk to seem quite unconcerned about this. One intelligent, and ambitious young woman we know, when faced with the comment about who will look after the children said that they had a point. Our local education department has been full of anxiety recently because the old boss is leaving. There’s nothing unusual in that until you hear that most of the anxiety has arisen because the new boss is female. And when you hear that most of the anxiety has come from female employees, what can you say?

Of course, the lack of gender equality in the workplace, in the boardroom and in politics is only one manifestation of a questionable commitment to equality. There are many other serious examples surrounding ethnicity, the ruling classes etc. However, I quite liked a relatively trivial one we encountered recently. When Mrs A was applying for her job, she was advised that because she was writing to ‘the big boss’, she should sign off ‘With profound respect’. Dear oh dear. I guess if he – and it will be a ‘he’ - enters the room you are expected to prostrate yourself.

Howay Ségo!