Introduction

Since the mid-1990s, the relation between women and politics in France has been almost constantly in the public eye. The campaign for parity, established in 1992, brought together feminists and women politicians from across the political spectrum in a demand for numerical equality between men and women in elected bodies. Its main success was to raise awareness of the under-representation of women in politics. With a growing majority of the population in favour of the idea of increasing women’s public presence, politicians began to find it politically advantageous to support the idea, and by 1997, only the Front national, one or two deputies (for example Christine Boutin (UDF) and Didier Julia (RPR)) and a significant number of senators publicly declared their opposition. The left-wing Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, and the right-wing President, Jacques Chirac, already engaged in the competition for legitimacy and support which cohabitation engenders, adopted the cause of women’s representation as part of their respective campaigns to modernise politics. The Constitutional Reform Bill which they both supported was passed by a special Congress of both houses of parliament at Versailles in June 1999.1

During the Bill’s passage through parliament, an intense public debate took place around the question of whether or not republican universalism would be irreversibly damaged by the recognition of sexual difference.