This article examines the 1983 egalite professionnelle law adopted under the Socialist government. Using a policy process approach, the analysis shows how the 1983 law failed to go beyond symbolic reform in policy formulation and implementation. In symbolic policy the outcome fails both to effectively reallocate resources and to generate policy feedback. The article concludes that while symbolic policy in the case of egalite professionnelle brought public attention to problems of gender discrimination in employment it failed to generate a permanent policy community, inside and outside of government, interested in the enforcement of programmes from the 1983 law.