The New York Times - Gender War à la Française Shakes Up Political Arena
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Gender War à la Française Shakes Up Political Arena
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: December 26, 2006
STRASBOURG, France, Dec. 20 - The shop floor of the Suchard factory
on the
city's edge is normally a place for gritty work and salty talk, not
female
empowerment. But here, even the middle-aged men seem eager to make a
woman their
next president.
The woman in question is Ségolène Royal, the 53-year-old nominee of
the
Socialist Party, who is turning French political history on its head by
turning
her sex into an asset.
To allay voters' concerns about a tepid economy, high unemployment
and pervasive
globalization, Ms. Royal has portrayed herself as the mother-protector
of the
nation. The strategy is more feminine than feminist. Ms. Royal seems
forever
caring, prettified and smiling, as she assures anxious audiences that
the
country's generous social safety net will hold and that everything
will be all
right.
Ms. Royal's electoral prospects may appear surprising in a nation
that
historically has not championed political equality for women. Women
voted for
the first time only after World War II. The percentage of women in the
National
Assembly today is only 12.6. Insulting women in politics has long been
a blood
sport for men.
But the contest for the French presidency this spring is shaping up as
one of
competing male-female images. Ms. Royal characterizes her expected
opponent on
the right, Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister, as a
survival-of-the-fittest
Darwinian male who admires the American model of competition and social
mobility. For many voters, the message seems to resonate.
"A woman is more sensitive than a man, much more interested in the
personal, the
social, the welfare of all," said Luigi Munforte, 54, the
representative of the
CFDT, the biggest private sector labor union, at Suchard. "A man is
more
interested in himself, in the promotion of the individual. For me,
Sarkozy is a
little despot. Ségolène has the feminine approach."
During a visit to the factory on Wednesday, Ms. Royal listened intently
to the
workers' woes. Suchard, a chocolate maker that is part of Kraft
Foods, will cut
123 of the factory's jobs - a third of its work force - early
next year.
Although she offered no proposal to save their jobs, she declared there
was "no
justification" for the cuts because the company was turning a profit.
The polling institute IFOP reported in January 2006 that 94 percent of
the
French believed that a woman was qualified to be president, compared
with 52
percent in 1972.
Thirty-seven percent of the respondents in a poll by the research
company Ipsos
last month said that they were attracted to Ms. Royal as a candidate
precisely
because she is a woman.
"You'd have to be really stupid to say you can't have a woman
president," said
Jean-Jacques Boehrer, 49, the representative of the Christian C.F.T.C.
union at
Suchard. "We had a woman prime minister, so why not a president?
France is not
as macho as it used to be."
That Ms. Royal is more gamine than Margaret Thatcher seems to have
added to her
allure.
"She's a little like Marianne, the ideal of the French republic,"
said Réjane
Sénac-Slawinski, a political scientist specializing in women and
politics. "She
gives the impression of being a wonder woman - a strong politician, a
good
mother, but also the woman every man wants to marry. Even when she
makes
mistakes, she's getting away with it because she says she's human,
not an
apparatchik."
The potency of her approach reflects the change in the political
atmosphere in
France. Not so long ago, male politicians would casually propose sexual
encounters as they passed their female colleagues in the hallways and
automatically assume that women received political appointments as
rewards for
sexual favors.
Every veteran woman in politics has a horror story to tell. Élisabeth
Guigou,
the deputy from the tough Seine-Saint-Denis area of Paris, has been
called a
Barbie doll behind her back and branded a whore in highway graffiti.
Françoise de Panafieu, a deputy mayor of Paris from the right-wing UMP
party,
who is her party's nominee for mayor of Paris in the 2008 election,
was
described as a "guinea hen on wheels" when she was photographed on
Rollerblades
in front of the National Assembly.
Roselyne Bachelot, a former minister of the environment, was portrayed
on a
satirical television show as simple-minded.
Still, Ms. Royal's candidacy - the first time a major French party
has chosen a
woman as its presidential nominee - remains an anomaly. French
politics is still
overwhelmingly male.
The assumption that politics is the domain of men has been perpetuated
in part
because of France's history. The concept of universal suffrage first
put forth
by the 1789 revolution applied to men only, for example.
Women's progress remains uneven, in part because of structural
problems in the
two largest parties, the governing UMP and the Socialist Party, that
allow men
to hold on to the political posts they first won a generation ago.
In addition to the poor showing of women in the National Assembly, only
11.6
percent of the more than 36,000 mayors in France are women. Only 3 of
Paris's 20
deputy mayors are women. Ms. Royal is the only woman among 26 regional
presidents in France.
A law passed in 2000 that requires each of the parties to present equal
numbers
of men and women on their election slates in regional and many local
elections
is often disregarded. The two main parties prefer to lose a huge share
of their
financing, which is paid by the state, rather than promote women for
election to
the National Assembly.
"We are still trapped in an 'old boys' club' party system that
favors the
veterans and punishes newcomers," said Mariette Sineau, a political
scientist.
"That's why the National Assembly is full of old, overprivileged
white men."
Certainly, the power of the woman as candidate is beginning to catch
on. In a
book on women in French politics published earlier this year, Michèle
Alliot-Marie, the defense minister, said she was fed up with the
subject. "Stop
seeing everything through this angle of women, women, women," she
told the
authors. "It's a question of competence, not sex."
But now that Ms. Alliot-Marie may challenge Mr. Sarkozy for the UMP
nomination,
and following Ms. Royal's nomination, the question seems to have
taken on new
importance for her.
"I believe that the French are completely ready to elect a woman"
as president,
Ms. Alliot-Marie told journalists earlier this month. She added,
however, that
there was only one thing that she and Ms. Royal had in common: they are
both
women.
Meanwhile, the French have not yet defined what constitutes political
correctness when it comes to women in politics.
A seasonal greeting card sent by a Socialist deputy mayor of Paris
trumpeting
2007 as the year of the woman featured a close-up of the vagina in a
Gustave
Courbet painting. A cartoon at the time of the Miss France pageant
earlier this
month showed more than a dozen bikini-clad candidates who all looked
like Ms.
Royal. Ms. Royal's flouncy skirts, close-cropped jackets and choice
of jewelry
are much commented on.
There is considerable criticism of Ms. Royal by women on the right for
using her
sex both as a weapon and as a shield.
"She's developed the strategy of the queen bee, and other women do
not exist for
her," Ms. Bachelot said. "She is not a sister figure. And those
little skirts
and jackets - she's trying to give the impression that's she's
almost a little
girl. And then whenever she's attacked, she says, 'You're
attacking me because I
am a woman.' "
Other women, however, defend Ms. Royal's style. "Seduction is very
important in
French politics," said Catherine Trautmann, the former Socialist
mayor of
Strasbourg who now is a member of the European Parliament. "François
Mitterrand,
Jacques Chirac certainly knew how to seduce. When a woman is too
serious, she
cannot be convincing."
But it may be that the segment of the electorate most difficult for Ms.
Royal to
win over will be the country's women. Ordinary women may find it hard
to relate
to a middle-aged professional and mother of four who looked good enough
in a
bikini last summer that one popular magazine referred to her as a
"siren."
"She has no hesitation saying how perfect she is," said Ms. de
Panafieu, the
deputy mayor, a lifelong politician who has six grandchildren and
stopped dying
her silver hair years ago. "She should be more modest."
At a sports complex outside Strasbourg where Ms. Royal made an
appearance on
Wednesday evening, none of the mothers had much sympathy for her.
"She talks a lot and gives a lot of advice but I have no idea what
she stands
for," said Audrey Reich, a 31-year-old nurse and mother. "She's
the public
relations personality of the moment."
Lucile Combet, 33, a construction foreman and mother of two, agreed.
"She's more
show than substance," she said. "And no matter what anyone says,
we're still in
a society run by men."
[ http://www.nytimes.com/ on-line for the non-text ]
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