“So all it will take is a crisis… for women to be allowed to go up in the fire”. This is the observation of Laurence Rossignol, former Socialist Minister for Women’s Rights, borrowed from Simone de Beauvoir to qualify this historical fact. For the first time in the political history of France, we find a trio of women in power.
Freshly chosen by the majority for the highest functions in the National Assembly, Aurore Bergé, Yaël Braun-Pivet and Elisabeth Borne form a trio of historic women.
A first in the Fifth Republic
Although weakened after the legislative elections, Elisabeth Borne, second woman at the head of a government after Edith Cresson thirty years ago, was “confirmed” this Saturday by Emmanuel Macron “over time”.
Aurore Bergé was elected last Wednesday at the age of 35 as president of the Renaissance deputies (ex-LREM). It was the first time under the Fifth Republic that a woman became the patroness of the majority group in the Assembly.
Another first: the presidency of the institution must also return Tuesday to a woman, Yaël Braun-Pivet, via a vote of all the deputies. She will thus succeed Richard Ferrand, a close friend of Emmanuel Macron defeated at the polls.
A feminization of the Palais Bourbon
A novice in politics in 2017 and bombarded then president of the Law Commission at the Palais Bourbon, the 51-year-old elected official only remained Minister for Overseas for a month. She left the government this weekend with a view to the perch.
Re-elected deputy for Yvelines on June 19, she took advantage of a window of opportunity to present herself to an internal primary for the presidency of the Assembly on Wednesday, winning over another ex-chairman of the LREM commission, Roland Lescure.
An observer of the two polls notes within the majority “a real momentum” in favor of women in a Bourbon Palace which hosted in 2016 for the first time a statue of a female historical figure, in the middle of figures of men and allegories. This is a bust of Olympe de Gouges, a feminist guillotined during the Terror.
A revenge
These victories also look like revenge on the incompetence trials or the prevailing sexism in the Assembly. “Some deputies were able to tell me ‘Don’t be your school teacher’, or ‘Thank you for your almost maternal reflections'”, reported in 2019 in She Mrs. Braun-Pivet, lawyer by profession and mother of a large family.
The feminization of the Assembly, with a record of some 39% of female deputies in 2017, has however had “many effects”, she noted a few weeks ago. “De facto, certain sexist behaviors have disappeared and women are speaking out more.”
However, the proportion of female deputies has slightly declined with the last legislative elections, dropping to 37%. “The fault both with the RN which presented many women in constituencies lost in advance, and with LR whose feminism has never been the cup of tea”, points out political scientist Mariette Sineau, co-author of ” Women and the Republic”. And the thrust of LFI, which had invested slightly more women than men, “was not enough” to reverse the trend.