208. This is the number of women who will sit in the French National Assembly, according to the final results of the legislative elections published by the Ministry of the Interior.
Far from the parity zone, women now represent 36% of the hemicycle. In other words, one in three MPs is a woman; two out of three are therefore men. This is a new step backwards for the representation of women after the 2022 elections, which followed the record of 2017. The proportion of women in the National Assembly had then reached 38.8% (or 224 MPs), before falling in 2022 to 37.3% (215).
It should be noted, however, that the contingent of women in the Assembly is the third largest in the country’s history since 1945, when women were authorized to sit.
For Sandrine Lévêque, professor of political science at Sciences Po Lille and researcher at the Center for Political and Social Administrative Studies and Research (CERAPS), the trend observed since Emmanuel Macron came to power was somewhat reversed on Sunday evening.
According to her, the dissolution of the National Assembly, announced on the evening of the European elections, took the public by surprise, but also the political class. Taken by surprise, the party leadership returned to its old habits by largely re-appointing the outgoing candidates — to the detriment of new faces, and therefore of emerging female candidates.
“As is often the case in times of crisis, parity has been relegated to the background. Even on the left, where the parties are more attentive to this issue,” continues M.me The bishop.
A very contrasting hemicycle
Among the three major blocs that now make up the French National Assembly, two are approaching parity: the New Popular Front, which has 78 female deputies (40.4% of its total), and Ensemble, Emmanuel Macron’s camp, which sees women making up 40.2% of its deputation.
Among the left-wing parties, Les Écologistes are at the top of the class (53.6% of elected women), ahead of La France insoumise (43.2%) and the Socialist Party (42.9%). On the presidential camp side, Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance movement has 41.2% of female deputies, compared to 36% for MoDem and Horizons.
The National Rally (RN) and The Republicans (LR) are lagging behind. The RN and its allies only have a third of women (33.3%), compared to 26.1% for LR.
Beyond the quantitative aspect, Sandrine Lévêque also points out a decline in quality – namely that very often, and even more so in the last elections, women inherit candidacies in constituencies where their chance of victory is far from assured. Not to say sometimes impossible.
“The National Rally, for example, is quite good in terms of parity, particularly in terms of avoiding losing funding [ce qui est prévu par la loi sur la parité de 2000]. The RN therefore presented women in large numbers… But, very often, where they could not win, like in Paris, in particular. In the end, the women of the RN obtained fairly weak results.
According to Mme Lévêque, this decline is also the symbol of the glass ceiling that remains regarding the representation of women on the French political scene. “The higher you go in the political hierarchy, the fewer women there are. For example, there are nearly 50% of women elected to regional councils, but only 20% of women are at the head of these councils.”
A woman at Matignon, impossible?
Among the favorites whose name is circulating to replace Gabriel Attal is that of Marine Tondelier, the national secretary of the environmentalists. But Sandrine Lévêque is not very optimistic about her chances of being appointed to this post by Emmanuel Macron.
“We have seen it since Sunday, women are excluded from these party discussions. They cannot participate in secret meetings until 4 a.m., because they often have family obligations. What we have seen since the second round is a return to the old politics with men distributing constituencies, key positions or ministerial seats,” says the researcher at CERAPS, who notes that the negotiations mainly involve white men of a certain age.
“Personally, I don’t think that a female figure is needed today for Matignon. We are heading towards a coalition that leans to the right, where there are fewer women. And as we sometimes say jokingly: ‘On the right, the feminine form of deputy is substitute'”, the researcher concludes.
Lagging behind in Europe
With only 36% of female MPs, France is lagging behind on a European scale in terms of the representation of women in Parliament, far behind Iceland (47.6%), Sweden (46.7%) and Spain (44.3%), according to the ranking established by the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Finally, it should be noted that in this area, Rwanda is still showing the way forward. In the 2020 elections, women numbered 49 out of 80 (i.e. 61.25% of the total number of deputies). And the presidency and the general secretariat of the chamber of deputies are also occupied by women.