President Emmanuel Macron's promise of greater gender equality has been "buried" due to insufficient budgets and weak measures, NGO Oxfam France has warned, just days before International Women's Day.
President Macron made the fight for gender equality and against violence against women "a national priority" when he came into office in 2017. But ambitions have been "buried" the French branch of anti-poverty charity Oxfam said on Monday.
French women still earn 23.5 percent less than their male counterparts in the private sector, and France was ranked the 48th country in the world for economic gender equality by the World Economic Forum in 2024, Oxfam said in a statement released Monday, in the lead up to International Women's day on 8 March.
While successive governments under Macron have announced strong measures such as equitable shared parental leave, a public early childhood service, and a reform of the professional equality index (Egapro), they've been "slow to materialise".
"A real public early childhood service is essential to reducing gender inequalities, given that women still sacrifice their careers when children arrive," said Sandra Lhote Fernandes, Oxfam France's gender justice campaign manager.
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'Insufficient' funding
Macron has repeatedly rejected accusations of inaction.
The government has highlighted, in particular, increased financial support for the 3919 helpline for women victims of violence, the deployment of emergency protection phones and anti-approach bracelets, as well as the professional equality index.
Last month the Minister for Gender Equality, Aurore Bergé, announced a 20 percent budget increase for 2025, raising funding to €94 million.
Oxfam argues this is insufficient, representing just 0.02 percent of the overall state budget.
"The 2025 budget for the Ministry of Women's Rights is barely half the cost of organising last June's snap legislative elections," Oxfam said, lamenting that close to 99 percent of the total state budget is "blind to gender inequalities".
Oxfam has proposed 15 emergency measures to improve the state of gender equality. They include: introducing "gender-based conditions" in public procurement, raising wages in female-dominated sectors, strengthening the Egapro index, creating an additional 200,000 public childcare spots, and implementing parental leave of at least six months shared between both parents.
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Framework law against sexual violence
Oxfam also called for more concrete action to tackle sexual violence, urging the government to introduce a comprehensive framework law against sexual violence – a request made in November by a coalition of feminist associations, but dismissed by the previous Barnier government.
A survey published in November showed sexual violence was on the increase – 484,000 women said they had been victims of violence by a partner or former partner in 2023.
Official figures for that same year showed 93 women were killed at the hands of their partner or former partner.
In the wake of the Mazan mass rape trial, the government in November promised to expand the system for filing complaints in hospitals and awareness-raising campaigns on "chemical submission".
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(with newswires)
