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‘Citoyennes à part entière’? The Constitutionalization of Gendered Citizenship in France and the Parity Reforms of 1999‐2000*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Jill Lovecy
Jill Lovecy*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
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Extract

In France the Last Decade has Witnessed a Notable Attempt at renewing the theory and practice of representative democracy. This has taken the form of a campaign, first launched in 1992, to tackle the significant under-representation of women in all of France's main arenas of elective representation by according constitutional status to the principle of parite. The campaign focused on the claim that, as one half of humankind, women in democratic polities should have the right to hold half of all elective offices:‘Femmes: moitie de la terre, moitie du pouvoire. Its supporters contended that the requirement that elective positions be held by equal numbers of men and women would revitalize French democracy, ushering in a new form of democratic polity: une democratie paritaire.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , October 2000 , pp. 439 - 462
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 2000

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Footnotes

*

I should like to thank the anonymous reviewer who provided most constructive comments on an earlier draft of this article.

References

1 This was the title of the monthly information bulletin produced by Yvette Roudy’s Ministère des Droits de la Femme from 1981.

2 ‘Women: half the world, half the power’: the title of a conference on parity held in 1994: Association Choisir, Femmes: moitié de la terre, moitié du pouvoir. Plaidoyer pour une démocratie paritaire, Paris, Gallimard, 1994. The campaign in France originated with the publication of F. Gaspard, C. Servan-Schreiber and A. Le Gall, Au Pouvoir, Citoyennes! Liberté, Egalité et Parité, Paris, Seuil, 1992. Other key campaigning publications include: Réseau Femmes pour la Parité, ‘Manifeste des 577’, in Le Monde, 10 November 1993; ‘Manifeste pour la Parité, L’Express, 6 June 1996 (signed by 10 prominent women politicians, including Simone Veil, Yvette Roudy, Monique Pelletier and Edith Cresson); G. Halimi, La nouvelle cause des femmes, Paris, Le Seuil, 1997; and also La Lettre de Parité and Parité-Infos.

3 The main exception being Jean-Marie Le Pen; on the other candidates see Le Monde 16–17 April 1996. Balladur, strongly inf luenced by Simone Veil, advocated constitutional reform to allow a statutory quota of 30 per cent to be introduced, whilst both Chirac and Jospin preferred at this stage to make party access to state-funding contingent on the number of women candidates fielded.

4 The opinion polling data is from L’Express, 7 November 1996, cited in E. Viennot, ‘Pour la Parité’, Le Monde Diplomatique (Manière de Voir 44), March–April 1999, p. 75.

5 The voting was: for, 741; against, 42; abstentions, 48; with a further 67 not participating in the vote, Le Monde, 30 June 1999. The same congress-session had earlier adopted another amendment, enabling France to ratify the treaty establishing an international penal court.

6 ‘Equality of access for women and men to electoral mandates and elective office will be promoted by statute’ and ‘Parties contribute to implementing the principle set out in the last paragraph of article 3, subject to conditions laid down in statute’: P. Avril and G. Conac, La Constitution de la République Française. Textes et révisions, Paris, Montchrestien, 2nd edn, 1999, pp. 10–13.

7 The fullest coverage is provided by Mossuz-Lavau, J., Femmes/Hommes pour la Parité, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po., 1998.Google Scholar See also: Varikas, E., ‘Refonder ou raccommoder la démocratie? Réf lexions critiques sur la demande de la parité des sexes’, in French Politics and Society, 12:4 (Autumn 1994), pp. 1–34;Google Scholar parité, ‘La “pour”; ’, Nouvelles Questions Féministes, 15:4 (November 1994);Google Scholar Latour, P.,Houssin, M. and Tovar, M., Femmes et Citoyennes, Paris, Les Editions de l’Atelier, 1995;Google Scholar parité, ‘La “contre” ’, Nouvelles Questions Féministes, 16:2 (March 1995);Google Scholar Viennot, E. (ed.), La Démocratie à la Française ou Les Femmes Indésirables, Paris: Université Paris VII/Cahiers du CEDREF, 1996;Google Scholar Projets Féministes, 4–5 (February 1996); ‘Principes et enjeux de la parité: journée d’études du 12 May 1996’, Cahiers du GEDISST, Paris, CNRS/IRSC, 1996; Halimi, G., La nouvelle cause des femmes, Paris, Seuil, 1997;Google Scholar Sineau, M., ‘La parité à la française: un contre-modèle de l’égalité républicaine?’, in Le Bras-Chopard, A. and Mossuz-Lavau, J. (eds), Les femmes et la politique, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1997;Google Scholar Sineau, M., ‘Les femmes politiques sous la Ve République. A la recherche d’une légitimité électorale’, in Pouvoirs, 82 (1997), pp. 45–57;Google Scholar Mossuz-Lavau, J., ‘Les Françaises et la politique: de la citoyenneté à la parité’, in Regards sur l’Actualité, 236 (December 1997), pp. 3–14;Google Scholar Bataille, P. and Gaspard, F., Comment les femmes changent la politique et pourquoi les hommes résistent, Paris, La Découverte, 1999.Google Scholar On the last two concepts, see Projets Féministes, loc. cit., pp. 11–29; and Hasse-Dubosc, D., ‘Sexual Difference and Politics in France’, in Feminist Studies, 25:1 (Spring 1999), pp. 183–210 Google Scholar.

8 Pace Mossuz-Lavau, J., ‘La parité entre dans la Constitution’, in Regards sur l’Actualité, 252 (June 1999), pp. 3–14;Google Scholar see Avril, P. and Gicquel, J., ‘Chronologie Constitutionnelle Française’, in Pouvoirs, 92 (2000), pp. 130–1.Google Scholar

9 Assemblée Nationale, Projet de Loi tendant à favoriser l’égal accès des femmes et des hommes aux mandats électoraux et fonctions électives, 2012, Paris, 8 December 1999; Assemblée Nationale, Rapport fait par M. Bernard Roman au nom de la Commission des lois constitutionelles, de la législation et de l’administration générale, 2103, Paris, 20 January 2000. On the final texts as adopted see Le Monde, 4 May 2000.

10 For examples drawn from the Anglo-American political science literature see: Norris, P., Politics and Sexual Equality: The Comparative Position of Women in West European Democracies, Boulder, Colo., Lynne Rienner, 1987;Google Scholar Mueller, C. (ed.), The Politics of the Gender Gap: the Social Construction of Political Influence, Newbury Park, Cal., Sage, 1988;Google Scholar Lovenduski, J. and Norris, P. (eds), Gender and Party Politics, London, Sage, 1993;Google Scholar and for political theory: Pateman, C., The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism and Political Theory, Cambridge, Polity, 1989 Google Scholar and Pateman, C., ‘Equality, Difference and Subordination’, in Bock, G. and James, S. (eds), Beyond Equality and Difference: Citizenship, Feminist Politics and Female Subjectivity, London, Routledge, 1992, pp. 17–31;Google Scholar Sunstein, C. (ed.), Feminism and Political Theory, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1990;Google Scholar Phillips, A., Engendering Democracy, Cambridge, Polity, 1991;Google Scholar Butler, J. and Scott, J. (eds), Feminists Theorise the Political, New York and London, Routledge, 1992;Google Scholar Lister, R., Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1997;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Landes, J. (ed.), Feminism, the Public and the Private, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar

11 Such developments date from the United Nations First World Conference on Women, Final Declaration of the Mexico Conference, New York, United Nations, 1975; United Nations, Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination, New York, United Nations, December 1979; and in Europe from the Council of Europe (Directorate of Human Rights), The Situation of Women in the Political Process in Europe, Preliminary Report, Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 1984; Conseil de l’Europe (Comité Directeur pour l’Egalité entre les Femmes et les Hommes), La démocratie paritaire, 40 ans d’activité du Conseil de l’Europe: actes du séminaire. Strasbourg, 6–7 novembre 1989, Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 1992; Conseil de l’Europe (Comité Directeur pour l’Egalité entre les Femmes et les Hommes), Conférence sur l’égalité de l’homme et de la femme dans une Europe en mutation: actes, Poznan, 31 mars–2 avril 1992, Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 1994; European Union, Rome Charter on the Participation of Women in Decision-Making, Luxembourg, Office of Official Publications of the European Communities, 1996. See also: Chen, M. A., ‘Engendering world conferences: the international women>’s movement and the United Nations’, in Third World Planning Review, 16:3 (1995), pp. 477–93;Google Scholar Rossilli, M., ‘The European Union’s Policy on the Equality of Women’, in Feminist Studies, 25:1 (Spring 1999), pp. 171–82.Google Scholar

12 Brookes, R. Eagle, A. and Short, C., Quotas Now; Women in the Labour Party, London, Fabian Society, 1990;Google Scholar Kolinsky, E. ‘Political Participation and Parliamentary Elections: Women’s Quotas in W. Germany’, in West European Politics, 14:1 ( January 1991), pp. 56–71;Google Scholar Beckwith, K., ‘Comparative research and electoral systems: lessons from France and Italy’, in Women and Politics, 12:1 (January 1992), pp. 1–33;Google Scholar McAllister, I. and Studler, D.S., ‘Gender and Representation among Legislative Candidates in Australia’, in Comparative Political Studies, 25 (1992), pp. 388–411;Google Scholar Maitland, F., ‘Institutional Variables Affecting Female Represetation in National Legislatures: the Case of Norway’, in Journal of Politics, 55:3 (1994), pp. 737–55;Google Scholar Norris, P., ‘Labour Party Quotas for Women’, in British Elections and Parties Yearbook, London, Frank Cass, 1994, pp. 167–80;Google Scholar Haug, F., ‘The quota demand and feminist politics’, in New Left Review, 209 (02 1995), pp. 136–45;Google Scholar Karvonen, L. and Selle, P. (eds), Closing the Gap: Women in Nordic Politics, Aldershot, Dartmouth, 1995.Google Scholar

13 Pizzorusso, A., ‘Le principe d’égalité dans la doctrine et dans la jurisprudence italiennes’ in d’Etat, Conseil, Sur le principe de l’égalité, Paris, La Documentation Française, 1998, p. 217;Google Scholar J. Mossuz-Lavau, Femmes/Hommes pour la Partié, 1998, pp. 131–2. In addition the IPU now records Argentina, Brazil, S. Korea and Nepal as having introduced gender-quotas: www.iup.org.

14 Le Monde, 9–10 February 1997. 446

15 Stone, A., ‘Judicialization and the Construction of Governance’, Comparative Political Studies, 32:2 (04 1999), pp. 147–84.Google Scholar

16 Chevalier, J., ‘L’Etat de Droit’, in Revue de Droit Publique, 3 (1988), pp. 313–80;Google Scholar Wright, V., ‘The Fifth Republic: from the Droit de l’Etat to l’Etat de Droit?’, in West European Politics, 22:4 (10 1999), pp. 92–119.Google Scholar

17 See Sineau, M., ‘Pouvoir, modernité et monopole masculin de la politique: le cas français’, in Nouvelles Questions Féministes, 13:1 (1992), pp. 39–61 Google Scholar. Figures cited are from Weissman, E., Les filles, on n’attend plus que vous!, Paris, Textuel, 1995.Google Scholar In 1977 the total number of women municipal councillors had leapt by 66 per cent from the preceding elections in 1971: Citoyennes à Part Entière, April 1983, p. 13.

18 Jenson, J. and Sineau, M., Mitterrand et les Françaises. Un rendez-vous manqué, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po., 1995, p. 369;Google Scholar also Sineau, M., ‘D’une présidence à la l’autre: la politique socialiste en direction des femmes (10 mai 1981–10 mai 1991)’, in French Politics and Society, 9:3–4 (1991), pp. 63–81.Google Scholar

19 Charzet, G., Les Françaises sont-elles des citoyennes?, Paris, Denoël-Gonthier, 1972;Google Scholar Dhavernas, O., Droits des femmes, pouvoirs des hommes, Paris, Le Seuil, 1978.Google Scholar

20 Cacheux, D., Krakovictch, O. and Stievenard, G., ‘Parti Socialiste et parité: histoire et actualité’, in Projets Féministes, 4–5 (02 1996), pp. 190–220;Google Scholar F. Gaspard et al., op. cit., 1992, pp. 157–8 and 164–5.

21 Rebérioux, M., Les Femmes en France dans une société d’inégalités, Rapport de la Ministère des Droits de la Femme, Paris, La Documentation Française, 1982;Google Scholar Mossuz-Lavau, J. and Sineau, M., Les femmes en 1978. Insertion sociale, insertion politique, Paris, FNSP/CORDES, 1980;Google Scholar Mossuz-Lavau, J., and Sineau, M., Enquête sur les femmes et la politique en France, Paris, PUF, 1983.Google Scholar A pioneering comparative study of women’s partisan identification had been published in France in the mid-1950s: Duverger, M., La Participation des Femmes dans la Politique, Paris, UNESCO, 1955.Google Scholar

22 Inter-Parliamentary Union, Répartition des sièges entre hommes et femmes dans les Parlements nationaux — Données Statistiques de 1945 au 30 june 1991, Rapports et Documents, 18, Geneva, IPU, 1991; and Addendum, 1993; Mossuz-Lavau, J., Femmes/ Hommes, pour la Parité, 1998, pp. 22–3.Google Scholar

23 France’s minor parties have provided a much more favourable terrain for women politicians: the Trotskyist Lutte Ouvrière being the first to choose a woman candidate for the presidency (Arlette Laguiller in 1974), followed by the ‘New Left’ Parti Socialiste Unifié (Huguette Bouchardeau in 1981) and the Greens (Dominique Voynet in 1995).

24 Libération, 8 March 1999.

25 The draft bill, counter-signed by President Chirac on 17 June 1998, was submitted to parliament on 15 December of that year: Le Monde, 10 December 1998; J. Mossuz-Lavau, ‘La parité entre dans la Constitution’, 1999, p. 3.

26 Giroud, F., Cent Mesures pour les Femmes, Paris, La Documentation Française, 1976.Google Scholar It was perhaps unfortunate that the title given to the new ministry was Secrétariat d’Etat pour la Condition Féminine.

27 F. Gaspard et al., op. cit., 1992, pp. 131–3. In the published bill the threshold was lowered to 80 per cent, but was to be applied only to towns of more than 9,000 inhabitants.

28 Avril, P., ‘Ce qui a changé dans la Ve République’, in Pouvoirs, 9 (1979), pp. 59– 60.Google Scholar

29 No candidate has, yet, won on the first ballot; on the second ballot, with only the two leading candidates allowed to go forward, the winner will have secured at minimum 50 per cent +1 of the votes cast.

30 J. Jenson and M. Sineau, op. cit., 1995, pp. 93–194. Giscard won in 1974 with a 52 per cent share of the votes cast by women, and just 47 per cent of those cast by men (Mitterrand losing with 53 per cent from the latter but only 48 per cent from the former).

31 Unlike Giroud, Simone Veil stayed in politics, becoming the most widely respected woman politician in France. Elected as a member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1993, she served as its speaker, returning to government under Balladur’s premiership in 1993. From 1994 she became a high-profile advocate of the parity principle: see Le Monde, 23 April 1994 and 15 March 1995, and was appointed to the Constitutional Council in 1998.

32 P. Grémion, Le Pouvoir Périphérique, Paris, 1982; Knapp, A., ‘The Cumul des Mandats, Local Power and Political Parties in France’, in West European Politics, 14:1 (01 1991), pp. 18–40;Google Scholar J. Lovecy, ‘Reshaping the terms of party competition and electoral mobilization in France: the parity legislation of May 2000’, paper presented to the workshop on France’s Political Parties, University of Salford, 20 September 2000.

33 J. Jenson and M. Sineau. op. cit., 1995, p. 65.

34 See above p. 440 and n. 3; J. Mossuz-Lavau, Femmes/Hommes, pour la Parité, 1998, pp. 52–4 and 111–34.

35 On the foot-dragging of much of the right in the Senate and Badinter’s position, see Le Monde, 5 March and 30 June 1999; on Elisabeth Badinter, infra, n. 49.

36 Halimi, G. and Halimi, R Bachelot-Narquin, (eds), Rapport de la Commission pour la Parité entre les femmes et les hommes dans la vie politique, 3 vols, Paris, Observatoire de la parité entre les femmes et les hommes, 1997;Google Scholar G. (ed.), La Parité dans la vie politique, Préface de Jospin, L., Paris, La Documentation Française, 1999.Google Scholar

37 Volcansek, M. (ed.), ‘Judicial politics and policy-making in Western Europe’, West European Politics, Special Issue, 15:3 (07 1992);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Weiler, J. H. H., ‘A Retrospective and a Prospective of the European Court of Justice in the Area of Political Integration’, in Journal of Common Market Studies, 31:4 (1993), pp. 417–46;Google Scholar Shapiro, M. and Stone, A. (eds), ‘The New Constitutional Politics of Europe’, Comparative Political Studies, Special Issue, 26:4 (01 1994).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Boulouis, J., ‘Le défenseur de l’éxécutif’, in Pouvoirs, 13 (1980), pp. 27–34.Google Scholar

39 CC décision, no. 82–146, 18 November 1982; see also Lochak, D., ‘Les hommes politiques, les ‘sages’… et les femmes. (A propos de la décision du Conseil Constitutionnel du 18 November 1982)’, in Droit Social, 2 (02 1983), pp. 131–7.Google Scholar

40 Cohen-Tanugi, L., La Métamorphose de la Démocratie, Paris, Odile Jacob, 1989, pp. 24, 26.Google Scholar

41 Stone, A., ‘Where judicial politics are legislative politics: the French Constitutional Council’, in Volcansek (ed.), op. cit., pp. 29–49;Google Scholar Stone, A., The Birth of Judicial Politics in France: the Constitutional Council in Comparative Perspective, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992.Google Scholar

42 D. Lochak, loc. cit., 1983; F. Gaspard et al., op. cit., 1992, p. 139.

43 D. Lochak, loc. cit., 1983; Lochak, D., Sineau, M., Le Gall, A. and Gaspard, F., ‘Les enjeux juridiques de la parité’, in Projets Féministes, 4–5 (02 1996), pp. 30–56.Google Scholar

44 Gaspard, F., ‘La parité entre égalité et indifférenciation. Dialogue avec François Gaspard’, in Revue Française des Affaires Sociales, 52:4 (10–12 1998), pp. 33– 41;Google Scholar Landes, J., Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution, Ithaca, N Y, Cornell University Press, 1988;Google Scholar Fraisse, G., Muse de la Raison, la démocratie exclusive et la différence des sexes, Paris, Alinéa, 1989;Google Scholar Scott, J. W., Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1996.Google Scholar

45 Conseil d’Etat, Sur le Principe de l’Egalité, Paris, La Documentation Française, 1998, pp. 107–8.

46 Ibid.; and Conseil d’Etat, Rapport Public sur le Principe de l’Egalité, J.-F. Théry and F. Stasse (eds), Etudes et Documents du Conseil d’Etat 48, Paris, La Documentation Française, 1996.

47 Carcassonne, G., ‘Amendments to the Constitution: One Surprise After Another’, in West European Politics, 22:4 (12 1999), pp. 83–5 and 89–90.Google Scholar

48 Le Monde, 29 June 1999.

49 G. Vedel in Le Monde, 3 February 1979; E. Badinter in Le Monde, 16 June 1996. An uncompromising response to this latter came from the philosopher Sylvia Agacinski-Jospin (and wife of Lionel Jospin), ‘Citoyennes, encore un effort’, Le Monde, 18 June 1996. On the opposition to parity, see also Pisier, E., ‘Les impasses de la parité’, in Cahiers de GEDISST (1996), pp. 75–84;Google Scholar E. Varikas, loc. cit., 1994; and P. Rosanvallon in Rosanvallon, P., Collin, F. and Liepitz, A., ‘Parité et universalisme (1)’, in Projets Féministes, 4–5 (02 1996), pp.94–126.Google Scholar

50 B. Kriegel, ‘Parité et principe d’égalité’ in Conseil d’Etat, op. cit., 1998, pp. 133– 42; a position vigorously challenged by E. Pisier, loc. cit., 1996 (reprinted in Conseil d’Etat, op cit., 1998, pp. 143–52).

51 Conseil d’Etat, op. cit., 1986, pp. 137–8.

52 Ibid., pp. 28–9. The preamble to the Fifth Republic’s constitution also reaffirmed the principles set out in the 1946 preamble.

53 See Gaspard, F. (ed.), Les Femmes dans la prise de décision en France et en Europe, Paris, l’Harmattan, 1997;Google Scholar and J. Lovecy, ‘Europeanization, multi-level governance and policy-framing: the EU’s Network on Women and France’s 1999–2000 parity reforms’, EPRU Working Paper, Department of Government, University of Manchester, September 2000.

54 Le Monde, 21 and 22 July 2000.