For both France and Ireland, 2024 was a year of parliamentary elections. However, the context surrounding both elections could not be more different. While the Irish elections were expected by many political commentators, Emmanuel Macron’s decision to dissolve the French Assemblée nationale came as a surprise to the French people. The last French dissolution dates to 1997 and led to a huge defeat of the presidential majority at the time. Following this cautionary tale, this discretionary presidential prerogative had fallen drastically out of use. Regardless of their differences, both elections led to the formation of new governments. While discourses following parliamentary elections are usually centred on the changing balance of power between political parties, it is also a prime opportunity to study the evolution of women’s representation in politics, in both the legislative branch and the executive branch.
The limited effects of French and Irish gender quotas in the legislative branch
Respectively on June 6, 2000, and July 28, 2012, France and Ireland passed their first laws targeting the over-representation of men in politics. The passing of the French measure caused a lot more constitutional turmoil than the Irish one did.
France’s first attempt at establishing gender quotas dates back to 1982. The first measure adopted at the time only applied to local elections and prohibited candidate lists, which are composed of more than 75% of candidates of the same gender. In a notable 1982 decision, France’s constitutional court the Conseil constitutionnel interpreted the measure to be contrary to the Constitution. The decision considers that by setting regulations upon the makeup of the candidate list, the measure proceeded to divide the electoral body in a way that is incompatible with the principle of equality between electors. 17 years later, the French Constitution was revised to cease the incompatibility between the fundamental norm and the measures stroked down in 1982. The French Constitution now includes a direct habilitative provision which provides that “The law shall promote equal access for men and women to electoral mandates and elective functions, as well as professional and social responsibilities”.
Following this constitutional amendment, the first law establishing gender balance rules for elections passed in 2000. While it imposed relatively strict obligations for lists ballots, the system for majority elections — which includes elections to the Assemblée Nationale — was much more flexible. The 2000 law creates an obligation for political parties to tend towards an equal number of candidates at the national level. At the time, if the difference between the number of candidates of each gender was higher than 2% the party saw part of their public funding reduced by a percentage, which amounted to half the difference in relation to the total number of candidates. Since then, the number of sanctions has gradually increased, reaching 150% of the gap between the number of men and women ever since the last reform in 2014.
In a previous piece on this blog, Dr. Jennifer Kavanagh detailed the legislative measures instituted in order to tackle the under-representation of women in politics in Ireland. The Irish system, although much more recent than its French counterpart, operates a similar type of gender quota for parliamentary elections. Since 2012, Irish political parties must practice a form of gender balance regarding the make-up of their pool of candidates. Contrary to the French measures, the Irish threshold evolves progressively between elections. For this latest election, political parties saw their funding divided by 50% unless “at least 40 per cent of the candidates whose candidatures were authenticated by the qualified party at the preceding general election were women and at least 40 per cent were men”.
Following both elections, Ireland and France sat respectively at the 99th and 42nd place in the Inter-parliamentary Union ranking of women in national parliaments. The French Assemblée nationale is currently composed of 36.2% of women, while the 44 women elected to the Dail represent 25.3% of its total members. Focusing on political parties, the French right-wing party Les Républicains amounted for the highest sanction, reaching almost 1,3 million euros. Behind them, Emmanuel Macron’s party saw their funding reduced by 520 000 euros, followed by the ecologist party, who lost 80 000 euros. In Ireland, most political parties respected the 40% threshold, which means very few sanctions will be issued. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and Labour all presented just over 40% of women candidates. The Social-Democrats and the Green Party each reach respectively 46% and 53% of women candidates.
In both scenarios, the gender quota schemes appear to have some beneficial but limited impact on the representation of women in parliaments. While they do establish a legal restraint on the gendered structure of the pool of candidates and seem to influence party behaviour in both the Irish and France context, the proportion of women in both assemblies remains far away from the objective of parity. Although it appears that the French and Irish mechanisms present weaknesses of diverse nature, they also share a common default.
Both mechanisms aim to regulate and ensure that the pool of candidates presented by each political party is balanced when it comes to gender. However, such systems won’t guarantee that the elected parliamentary assembly is more equally composed. On this point, Kavanagh evokes the Irish “sweepers”, women candidates who are assigned constituencies in which they have a very low chance of winning. A similar phenomenon has been identified in France during the latest elections. Data analysis from Le Monde reveals that women are mostly given constituencies where they have little chance of winning. This cross-party trend is especially preeminent among the far-right party Rassemblement national, where women make up 63,16% of people invested in unfavourable constituencies (compared to 49,38% for the leftist union and 46,15 for the former presidential majority). These strategies allow parties to avoid financial sanctions while not having to enhance the number of women in Parliament. Although, assemblies are currently the only regulated institution with regards to gender balance, the executive branch also constitutes an example of gender dynamics at play in politics in both the French and Irish context.
The absence of gender quotas in the executive branch
French and Irish governments are formed along very different procedures. The Irish Constitution provides in article 7 that ministers are systematically members of parliament, mostly members of the Dáil Éireann as the government can’t comprise more than two members Seanad Éireann. The French Constitution of 1958 grants politicians’ significant freedom in composing governments. While the President and Prime Minister must cooperate, even when they don’t subscribe to the same political party, there is no constitutional mandate limiting the number of ministers and no obligation to select ministers who are members of parliament. On this issue, the text explicitly mentions that “the functions of members of Government are incompatible with the exercise of any parliamentary mandate”. As a result, French governments are often quite numerous, the two former examples sitting at 35 members of the Bayrou government and 41 for its predecessor, which was led by the recently dismissed Michel Barnier.
With regards to gender in the Irish executive branch, there are only three women occupying one of the fifteen slots available. A desperately low number, which led to various criticism, since only six women were subsequently named Ministers of State. In total, the current Irish executive branch is currently 76% male. Since the inscription of the objective of political parity in the French constitution, an overwhelming majority of governments have defined themselves as respecting the gender balance. However, there is a discrepancy between political communication and the actual gender makeup of the French government. Given the absence of any constitutional regulation on the number of offices of government, the executive branch usually presents governments, which are equal in terms of gender balance at first glance.
As an example, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised during his campaign that his government would not exceed fifteen members and include an equal number of men and women. He was subsequently praised for respecting his promise in 2007. Out of fifteen members, seven were women. However, official data from the Haut Conseil à l’Égalité entre les Femmes et les Hommes, an authority in charge of promoting and monitoring women’s rights, notes that the first government under Sarkozy included only 34% of women and the last one before he left office peaked down at 26%. The data available does show that succeeding governments made some progress, as the first four governments under President François Hollande (2012-2017), were at least composed of 47% of women. Although governments for the last decade have been declared equal in terms of gender balance, these governments aren’t necessarily gender-free. The promise of gender-balanced governments sometimes overshadows the underrepresentation of women in regalian offices. When studying the 2022 government led by the second women Prime Minister in France’s history, Elizabeth Borne, the Haut Conseil underlines how “the repartition of ministries still answers, […] to gender bias and sex stereotypes: 4 men head the five sovereign functions, 7 women head the 9 social ministries”. A similar trend can be pointed out in the current Irish cabinet, since the three women appointed are in charge of education, children and health.
Re – evaluating gender norms in political institutions
Overall, whether in France or in Ireland, whether in the executive or the legislative branch, the makeup of governments remains deeply conditioned by gendered dynamics, testifying to the numerous aspects in which gender norms reproduce within the institutions of government. While in both contexts, a portion of party financing is now dependent on presenting an equal number of men and women for legislative elections, both mechanisms — for both similar and distinct factors — have proven to be limited to achieving gender-balanced assemblies. Surprisingly, the absence of regulation related to the executive branch doesn’t systematically imply a lower participation of women, as illustrated by the latest French government. Nevertheless, progress with regards to participation of all genders is in no way a guarantee of gender-free governments. Above all, this demonstrates the need for a comprehensive approach to understanding how gender permeates the various dimensions of elections and political institutions.
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