Illustration of a woman in business – SUPERSTOCK / SIPA
The National Assembly voted on Wednesday evening a bill on LREM promising quotas to impose more women in management positions in large companies. Examined at first reading, this consensual text was adopted unanimously by the 61 votes cast. It must now be sent to the Senate.
This endorsement from all the benches provoked tears of emotion in the deputy Marie-Pierre Rixain (LREM), president of the delegation for women’s rights in the Assembly, which carried this text. “The quota sometimes raises concerns but it is necessary” to “catch up with a delay linked to inequalities deeply rooted in mentalities”, insisted Elisabeth Moreno, Minister in charge of Equality between women and men, who mentioned in the hemicycle “a society which in many ways remains patriarchal, sexist and discriminating”.
In 2030, there should be 40% of senior executives
Rewritten in committee, article 7 of this bill calls for companies with more than 1,000 employees to have a proportion of at least 30% of women among “senior executives and members of governing bodies” in 2027, and 40% in 2030. These medium-sized or large companies will first have to publish “every year the possible differences in representation” between women and men “among senior executives”.
In 2030, “within a maximum period” of “two years”, they will have to comply with the rule of 40% of senior executives, under penalty of “applying a financial penalty”, capped at 1% of the mass. salary. Before a possible sanction, the labor inspectorate will however take into account the voluntarism of companies and their sectors of activity, some such as construction and engineering being particularly masculinized.
A weak presence on the executive and management committees
This text was debated ten years after the adoption of the Copé-Zimmermann law, which imposed 40% of women on the boards of directors of companies. The law allowed women to occupy in 2019 43.6% of director seats in the 120 largest listed companies, against a little more than 26% in 2013. Attention is now focused on their place , still weak, in the executive and management committees. “The glass ceiling remains a reality,” said Marie-Pierre Rixain.
At Medef, the president of the employers’ organization, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, deplored the lack of women in these governing bodies, without demanding the extension of the 2011 law. people resign or they are made redundant. If we lay off men to make room for women, there is a problem of discrimination ”and“ legality ”, he argued.