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This article explores the issue of women's political representation in France and India. Its aim is threefold. First, it explains how women's representation was placed on the political agenda. Second, it examines the arguments used to justify and oppose demands for better representation. Finally, it considers what conclusions can be drawn from the two cases. By moving beyond conventional comparative categories in Western feminist literature and beyond the isolationist insistence within France on its own specificity, the paper identifies the particularisms and commonalities of each case, thus attempting to achieve what Shirin Rai calls a "rooted crossing of cultural, historical and political boundaries" (Rai, 2000:15). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]