Parties, Gender Quotas and Candidate Selection in France

Abstract

Women make up just 19 per cent of Parliaments around the world.1 This is a constant source of frustration for those who wish to see Parliaments resemble the populations they seek to represent. The under-representation of women crosses regional and sub-regional boundaries, this is particularly true of Europe: for instance, women do relatively well in the Nordic countries and Germany, but are less successful in France, the UK and Italy. Moreover, the under-representation of women permeates all electoral and party systems, with proportional representation no longer considered to be a panacea for increasing the number of women elected. One way in which political parties and governments have sought to address the problem has been through the implementation of sex quotas to guarantee women's representation: either through the use of reserved seats for women, legislative quotas or party quotas.2 Quotas are usually contested mechanisms, calling into question concepts of merit and equality, and often result in polarised opinion, inter-party differences and intra-party tension. Despite their prescriptive nature quotas do not always have the desired effect, namely to increase the number of women elected, this is certainly true of France.