Abstract
This paper first presents the established republican model. Next, the analysis examines
how important changes in the social and political context created unprecedented conditions
around 2000 for a sea change in the way gender equality issues are discussed and addressed in
public policy. The third section assesses the degree to which the new model is concretely
driving recent state action that explicitly aims to strike down gender-hierarchies and promotes
women’s status, right or conditions; in other words feminist policy. At the center of this
discussion is a perennial issue for feminist policy formation --to what degree are formal policy
statements actually implemented in authoritative policy that close the gap between men’s and
women’s status and right.
A new model for gender equality politics may be emerging on the French political scene.
It incorporates a feminist approach to equality policy and politics where government action is
designed to tackle the deep-seated social causes of inequality between men and women and,
hence, aims to change established gender roles that have served as obstacles in providing women
at least the same opportunities, if not the same results as men. The transition to the new model
has only been evident since 2000 given the salience of a gender-biased universal republican
model and the resulting resistance of key policy elites to feminist actor demands. The current
changes occurring in gender politics are part and parcel of the breakdown of the closed,
centralized, and jacobin approach to policymaking. With the development of a more porous
state, proponents of gender equality have the potential to gain entry and influence policy
decisions and in doing to make the French state more democratic.
1
This paper is a version of a chapter in A. Cole, P. Le Galès and J. Levy (eds). 2005. Developments in French Politics 3, Palgrave.
2
Convention