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Although the populist radical right is generally seen as a particularly masculine and misogynist phenomenon, several of its parties have female leaders. The most prominent is Marine Le Pen, president of the French National Rally (formerly the National Front) and unofficial leader of the European populist radical right. Using insights from intersectionality theory, we posit that Marine Le Pen, as a female populist radical right politician, faces qualitatively different media coverage than both her female and her radical right counterparts. In this study, we analyze her media framing in two French (Le Figaro and Le Monde) and two U.S. (New York Times and Wall Street Journal) newspapers, focusing on the application of gender and populist radical right frames. We find that the "harder" populist radical right frame dominates the "softer" gender frame in all four newspapers, but, paradoxically, the combination of the two frames leads to overall less biased coverage of Marine Le Pen compared with both other female and other populist radical right politicians. In the conclusion, we discuss some of the consequences of the findings for the broader study of female politicians, most notably, theories of intersectionality and the double bind for women in leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since June 6, 2000 there have been several modifications to the French “parity law”. In ten years, five laws were adopted, thus altering its scope and methods of application. While some of these electoral reforms aimed to strengthen gender equality, other reforms have weakened however the parity law. The purpose of this article is to review these changes by focusing more specifically on two types of laws: that of January 31, 2007, supposed to strengthen gender equality and that of 10 December 2010 marks an unprecedented decline. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: While language use has been argued to reflect gender asymmetry, increasing parity has been evidenced in official settings (). Our hypothesis is that the French national press has developed a norm of equal linguistic treatment of men and women. In a corpus of articles from Libération, Le Monde, and Le Figaro, we examine the treatment of Arlette Laguiller, the female leader of the French extreme-left ‘Worker''s Struggle’ Party (Lutte Ouvrière), during the run-up to the 2007 presidential elections. How Laguiller is referred to and described in comparison with her male counterparts evidences no asymmetry. Breaches to parity are only found in the right-wing Figaro newspaper. The ideological distance between the newspaper and the candidate suggests that power struggles are a primary source of asymmetrical treatments. The discursive functions of such treatments can be understood through an investigation based on a portable corpus linguistics methodology for the measure of discrimination. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Cet article etudie le discours sur les femmes et les hommes politiques lors de la campagne d'investiture en 2006 dans les grands quotidiens francais. En effet, si la loi de la parite n'a pas connu le succes escompte, un decret vote la meme annee encourageant l'emploi du feminin des noms de metier a connu plus de succes. Cependant, malgre une visibilite lexicale des femmes accrue, resultat de l'emploi de la feminisation, la presente etude met en evidence un discours defavorable a Royal. Avant de conclure a une polarite des sexes en discours journalistique, l'etude du discours sur Buffet (elue bien etablie dans le monde politique) et Besancenot (jeune nouveau venu sur la scene des elections) montre au contraire que lorsque les enjeux sont moins prestigieux, le discours tendrait a prendre en consideration la preeminence des candidats sans se polariser sur des stereotypes de genre. Le rapport de statut complexifie donc celle du rapport de genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of France's "parity" law in 2000 raised fears of electing inferior women candidates via a gender quota. France has since held two legislative elections, with the proportion of women in parliament rising from 10.9% to 12.3% in 2002, and 18.5% in 2007. These rises permit an empirical evaluation of whether "quota women" measure up to those elected without a quota. New women parliamentarians are compared to their male counterparts and to women elected before 2002 to see whether there are any noticeable differences in their background (profession, age, and prior experience) and their levels of parliamentary activity (including numbers of bills, reports, and questions introduced). The findings challenge the notion that parity is producing weak politicians. The slightly different profiles of men and women politicians reflect wider barriers to women's political careers that would not have been overcome without the parity law. Once women are elected, the volume of activity shows no evidence of being gendered, suggesting that women are as effective in the job as men. These findings imply that sex is a barrier to entry but not to performance, reinforcing claims for the use of quotas to overcome entry barriers and negating claims that quotas produce second-rate parliamentarians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a chronic history of under-representation for women in France, a number of developments in 2007 appeared to offer new prospects for women politicians. Segolene Royal was the first credible woman candidate to contend a presidential election; the second application of the 'parity' law led to the election of record numbers of women to the French Parliament; and several women were appointed to key positions in the post-election government. This paper argues that all of these developments amount to significant progress, but are still insufficient to address the persistent problem of women's under-representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines French Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal's use of gendered discourse during the 2007 French presidential elections as a means to appeal to voters. Particular attention is paid to how Royal's campaign highlighted the fact that she was a woman and how the strategy was received within the context of French political culture derived from the republican tradition of the French Revolution. An analysis of how three French newspapers, "Le Figaro," "Le Monde," and "Libération," responded to her campaign strategy is presented.

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The introduction of mandatory gender quotas in party lists is a reform that many countries have recently adopted or have been considering. The electoral system affects the incumbents' incentives to make such reforms, their details, and their effectiveness. We show that male incumbents can actually expect an increased incumbency advantage when gender quotas are introduced, if they are elected through single-member district majority rule. On the other hand, no expectation of male advantage can reduce the incumbents' fear of being replaced if they are elected through closed-list proportional representation. As France has both electoral systems, we validate the above argument using a formal model of constitutional design as well as an empirical analysis of the legislative elections in France, displaying the existence of male bias in the last three elections. We also show that parity may have Assembly composition effects and policy effects that vary with the electoral system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 10 years after the strategic alliance in 1996 between women politicians on the right and left around publication of the 'Manifeste pour la Parité,' a qualitative survey of French party officials and NGO leaders at the local and national levels shows pragmatic consensus on the necessity of using legislative means to promote gender equality in political representation. Most literature on the subject either analyzes the genesis of France's so-called parity laws or quantitatively assesses their effects, saying little about how the laws call into question France's traditional political norms. This study focuses on the rhetorical strategies used by party and NGO officials to render the laws consistent with their own, diverse ideological positions. This 'ideological tinkering' has a political dimension; it also reflects the importance of nation-centered rhetoric and a low degree of awareness of prior European-level actions in favor of parity in political representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the promotion of gender difference by French women politicians during the 1990s debate on political parity and evaluates its usefulness as a communications strategy. It begins with a critique of differentialist assertions to establish the extent to which there is evidence that political discourse is gendered and then examines the dangers of differentialism for women's role in politics. The article shows how gender has been used in different ways to women's advantage and disadvantage, taking as examples two emblematic female politicians, Edith Cresson and Ségolène Royal. It argues that French women are caught in a double bind, whereby opposing strategies-Cresson's 'egalitarian' discourse or Royal's differentialist approach-are illustrative of a communications environment in which gender stereotypes prevail. The article concludes with the view that although differentialist arguments helped to get parity on to the statute books, gender remains a double-edged sword when used as part of a woman politician's self-image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the gender jingoism issue in the political landscape of France. He explains how Ségolène Royal's gender indirectly affected her presidential candidacy in the country. He discusses the parity law of France as well as the political presence of women in the country. He also stresses the significance of Royal's candidacy in the parity law of the country, despite her defeat.