The Paris city government has received an unlikely punishment: a fine of 90,000 euros, equivalent to $ 110,000, for appointing too many women to high positions and breaking French gender equality rules.
The crime dates back to 2018, when Mayor Anne Hidalgo appointed 11 women and five men to her senior team at a time when administrations around the world were trying to increase female representation in governments. But with 69% of positions for women and 31% for men, Paris broke national government rules to promote equality, requiring at least 40% of new positions to be assigned to each gender.
In 2019, a waiver was introduced if the new hires did not lead to a broader gender imbalance. This would seem to be the case in Paris, where women represent just under half of senior city council officials. But the first round of appointments preceded the resignation, which meant the Paris government was still stuck.
Ms Hidalgo told a town hall meeting on Tuesday that the appointments helped give women a higher voice in the French government and, with her tongue on her cheek, said she was delighted to pay the fine.
“In Paris, we are doing everything to make it a success, and I am very proud of a great team of women and men who together lead this struggle for equality,” Ms. Hidalgo.
Many countries have tried to encourage greater political participation of women in recent years. Some researchers suggest that there have been useful benefits, as women leaders in some cases have been better than their male counterparts during the Covid-19 pandemic, at least in its early stages.
Economists Uma Kambhampati of the University of Reading in England and Supriya Garikipati of the University of Liverpool examined 194 countries and found that in mid-May women leaders closed their economies earlier and their countries suffered half of related deaths. with Covid-19 on average as those run by men. However, this could be due, in part, to the fact that women tend to lead left-wing administrations that have been prepared to take more decisive state measures to curb the spread of the virus.
Ms. Hidalgo, who was re-elected to her second term as mayor earlier this year, is one of the most prominent members of the Socialist Party after suffering a series of defeats in the last national elections. But it has also struggled politically with the spread of the pandemic across Europe, although Paris has sometimes had stricter restrictions than other parts of the country.
The fine, then, was a rare opportunity to take advantage of the success of the policy. Ms Hidalgo says she now plans to present a check for the fine to the Ministry of Public Services itself, along with senior city government executives.
“We will be so many of us,” he said.
In turn, Amélie de Montchalin, France’s public service minister, described the fine as absurd on Twitter. “I want the fine paid by Paris in 2018 to fund concrete actions to promote women in public service,” she said. “I invite you to the ministry to raise them!”
Write to James Hookway to [email protected]
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