France set course for a revolution in its old boys’ corporate culture yesterday as parliament considered a law to force big companies to appoint women to 40 per cent of their boardroom seats.
MPs for President Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) tabled the Bill, which gives companies six years to comply, but it is broadly supported by the Government and is likely to pass into law in amended form this year.
The measure will mean an upheaval because the boards of France’s top companies remain male bastions along with those of southern Europe. Women occupy just over 10 per cent of board seats in the 650 publicly quoted companies to which the new law would apply. Some corporate giants, such as EADS, the Franco-German-dominated parent of Airbus, have no women directors. Britain’s record is not much better, with 12 per cent of board seats in big companies.
Opponents wonder where France will find enough qualified femmes d’affaires. Jean-François Cop?, the UMP parliamentary leader, who is behind the Bill, pointed out that women managers were said to have handled the recent financial crisis better than men. “A business is not going to go bankrupt because it has as many women as men on the board,” he joked.
If the Bill passes, France will become the biggest state so far to use the law to break the “glass ceiling”. Norway introduced a 40 per cent rule in 2002 when women accounted for only 6 per cent of board seats there. Spain has also just passed a similar law.
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Leading businesswomen initially opposed using quotas to enforce parity but many have changed their minds in the face of continuing refusal by the old guard to seek a gender balance in the upper corporate ranks. “The situation in France is abnormal. If we cannot manage otherwise then let’s make things move with quotas,” said Anne Lauvergeon, the chief of Areva, the nuclear power giant.
The quota law is also backed by Laurence Parisot, head of Medef, the national employers’ association. Claire de Montaigu, of the French division of Leaders Trust, a head-hunting firm, said that she was shocked by quotas because they created gender segregation. “That said, you have to recognise that they are effective.”
The draft law also marks a new break from France’s traditional hostility to quotas as a means of enforcing parity. Mr Cop? is drawing on the example of a 2000 law that has been successful in forcing parity on local government and French European Parliament lists.
However, the Assembl?e Nationale, the Lower House, remains resolutely male, with only 18 per cent of seats held by women. The big parties prefer to pay fines to the state rather than comply with the law. Mr Sarkozy is also under fire from feminists for failing to keep a promise to appoint a 50-50 Cabinet.
The Socialist opposition, traditionally the social innovator in French politics, has been caught off guard by the initiative from the centre-right UMP. It has not openly opposed it yet but it is criticising Mr Cop?’s Bill as a gimmick that does not address the deep inequality between women’s and men’s pay and promotion prospects at all levels.
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The Government’s own more modest efforts to encourage parity have also been overtaken by the UMP move. Xavier Darcos, the Labour Minister, is to table a Bill this spring that aims to redress gender inequality at work. Quotas were not planned but he is now expected to support the UMP Bill. He backed the quota scheme in Parliament last night, saying that it was an important first step. “The Government intends to go much further because, while the example must be set from the top, we must act in the interests of all female salary earners.”
The UMP parliamentary action is the second this month aimed at improving women’s rights. Mr Cop?, who is something of a rebel in the Sarkozy camp, is about to table a Bill that would ban women from appearing in public with full Muslim veils. The measure has wide popular support but Mr Sarkozy has called on the party to wait and reflect on the wisdom of a broad ban on the dress.