Before International Women’s Day, France appears to be a very good student in terms of professional equality. Decryption with Raphaël Ebenstein.
Before International Women’s Day, Wednesday March 8, The word eco focuses on professional equality between women and men.
franceinfo: It may seem surprising, but France is a very good student in this area?
Raphael Ebenstein: France is clearly the leader, like last year, of the Equileap barometer, published on Thursday 2 March. This international consulting firm, specializing in professional equality, has analyzed the results of around 4,000 large companies, on the basis of 19 criteria, such as the pay gap between men and women, the place of women in management, or parental leave practices.
Overall, France obtains a percentage of 55%, and is ahead of Spain and Italy. A podium which may also seem unexpected, ahead of the countries of Northern Europe or Great Britain. Among the French groups, L’Oréal has the best rating, just ahead of Sodexo. And 14 French groups are in the world Top 100 for their best practices.
How can this performance be explained, and how does France particularly stand out from other countries?
In particular by the presence of women on the boards of directors of large companies listed on the CAC 40. There are thus more than 46% of female directors, and this is the best rate among European countries. It reaches, for example, only 33% in Germany. A consequence, no doubt, of the legislation, the Copé-Zimmermann laws of 2011 and Rixain of 2021, which impose a minimum representation of women.
According to another study, commissioned by the French Institute of Directors from Ethics & Boards, more than 1/3 of CAC 40 groups now respect a minimum quota of 30% women, members of their management committee, or their executive committee, that is to say really the decision-making bodies, the threshold precisely set by the Rixain law.
What about the index of professional equality set up by the government, and the obligation of companies with more than 50 employees to have published their results on March 1?
Nearly 42,000 checks have been carried out by the Labor Inspectorate since the beginning of 2019, on the theme of professional equality, according to the government, giving rise to 695 formal notices and 42 penalties. But, on the whole, large companies, those with more than 1,000 employees, which were the first concerned by the index, seem to play the game rather with an average score of 86 out of 100.
This does not prevent Élisabeth Borne, the Prime Minister, from threatening companies which do not play the game, and which have a score lower than 75, of no longer having access to public contracts, by the end of the five-year term. The announcement should be made, symbolically, Wednesday, March 8.