Gender Quotas Database

France was the first country in the world to introduce a compulsory 50 per cent gender parity provision. Political parties are required to ensure the equal representation of men and women on their lists of candidates for most elections. The first major impact of the quota was in 2007, when the number of women in parliament rose to 18.5 per cent (Murray 2012: 27).

The quota provisions differ depending on the electoral systems applied for different legislative levels. The allocation of most seats in the Senate, at the sub-national level and for the European Parliament is based on proportional representation lists, while the elections for the National Assembly are based on a majority system in single member districts. The quota regulation provides for 50 per cent representation of each sex on the list for candidates for proportional representation lists and requires parties to alternate male and female candidates on their lists. For single member districts, only the top candidate on each list has the possibility to get elected—that is, women would need to occupy top seats on 50 per cent of the winning lists in order for parity to be reached.

The first attempt to introduce legal quotas occurred in 1982, when a quota bill was passed for the elections to municipal councils. However, it was overturned by the Constitutional Council in 1982 as discriminatory (Krook, et. al. 2006: 210; Sineau 2008: 52). Parity was finally successfully legislated through the constitutional law of 1999, and the adoption of the electoral legislation in 2000.

Implementation of legislated quotas for elections of the National Assembly has been marked by notable challenges due to the system of single-member constituencies where parties have often resisted the implementation of the gender quota provisions even in the presence of financial sanctions. The combination of the list proportional representation system and the parity requirement, together with the sanction of invalidation of lists, has been noted as a combination leading to better compliance by parties at the local level (Sineau 2008: 54).

However, during the period of 2013-2015, France’s sub-national governance structure and the local electoral system have gone through a major change. Amendments to the electoral code, related to the election of the departmental councils, (Article L 191 of the Electoral Code) state that voters in each canton of a department elect two members (a male and a female). The law requires that alternates of each candidate should be persons of the same sex as their main candidates and should be presented in a tandem manner as well. According to Evans and Ivaldi, “France’s proactive attempts to achieve gender parity across its representative institutions …will by definition produce exact parity” (Evan and Ivaldi, 2015). Based on the results of the March 2015 departmental elections, half or 2054 of the 4,108 councilors are women.

Furthermore, in parallel to the introduction of the “tandem” nomination rules (“binôme” as it is termed in French); a restructuring of the old system has been initiated. “The Map of cantons was redesigned in early 2014. It will allow a more equitable representation of each canton in number of inhabitants per elected. From 4035 cantons in the last elections, the new map is composed of 2054 cantons [for a total of 4108 seats to be filled], each represented by two elected [female and male team], departmental councilors in a single vote in 2015” (Dossier de presse.). The new electoral system could be described as a two-round, first-past-the-post design.

To explain in greater detail, “…to be elected in the first round, the pair must obtain at least an absolute majority of votes (over 50 %) and a number of votes equal to at least 25 % of registered voters.[…]If no pair is elected in the first round, there shall be a 2nd round. The two candidates who led in the first round can be maintained. The following pairs can be maintained only if they have obtained a number of votes equal to at least 12.5% of registered voters. The pair that gets the largest number of votes (relative majority) in the second round is elected. Once elected, both members of the duo perform their duties independently of the other.” (comprendre ce qui change, www.interieur.gouv.fr)

So now, each of the 100 departments has about 20 cantons. Cantons serve as territorial units for electing departmental councilors, the number of which has risen from 4,030 to 4,108 in the recent sub-national governance reform. In 2011 only 717 out of 4,030 councilors (18%) were women (Annexe 11 - Les statistiques (au 1er décembre 2014).