The French Debate on Gender Parity in Politics: Editing and Translating the Interviews of Parity Proponents and Opponents.
Department of Political Science
10 April 2003
In 1999, the left-wing government of Lionel Jospin amended France’s Constitution, which now provides that “the law favours the equal access of women and men to elected office” and that political parties “ensure the implementation of this principle in the conditions determined by the law.” As a result, France became the first country in the world to change its Constitution in order to bring about more gender parity in elected assemblies. In France, the issue of gender parity in politics, which first emerged in the late 1980s, triggered a parity movement that pressured decision-makers to carry out parity reforms as well as a lively debate between advocates and opponents of gender parity in politics (or paritarists and anti-paritarists). In order to better understand how parity reforms came about as well as the relationship between the parity movement and the contemporary French feminist movement, open-ended interviews were conducted with several paritarists and anti-paritarists. These interviews were edited and translated in English. They are to be incorporated in a book manuscript on gender parity in French politics. Drawing mostly on these interviews, the presentation will discuss the topic of gender parity in French politics as well as issues relating to research, editing and translating processes.