Hollande's cabinet shows gender equality

Nicolas Sarkozy promised a parity government in 2007, but failed to deliver. Five years later, newly elected president François Hollande has just done it. For the first time, France boasts as many women as men in its 34-member cabinet. It may have looked gimmicky at first; it does however feel as if a hurdle has been finally passed, or a weight has been lifted off our shoulders. Gender equality can be done after all. See, easy. And to live these moments in Cannes, on the first day of the 65th Cannes film festival where no women directors feature among the 22 film-makers whose films have been selected in competition somehow highlights Hollande's achievement. I have personally never belonged to the positive discrimination hordes. You should appoint people for their competence, not because you need them to reach quotas. The appointment of Rachida Dati as justice minister by Sarkozy in 2007 looked in that regard a rather calculating and cynical choice. History showed she didn't measure up to the task; her appointment was a disservice to feminism. However, I have been increasingly appalled by gender disparity in the workplace, and in politics in particular. When you look at Hollande and his prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault's choices for the French government, few raise questions of competence and legitimacy. There seem to be few "gimmick" appointments and no Sarkozy-like beauty contest (the former president was famous for favouring slim and fit people, and if possible, good-looking). In fact, Hollande's parity achievement feels normal. At long last. For decades, there was a factual reason for gender disparity at the helm of the state. Few women reached higher education and when they did, in schools like Sciences-Po, Normale Supérieure and ENA, among France's grandes écoles producing the Republic's governing elite, they were simply outnumbered. Gender disparity in high spheres wasn't a male conspiracy, only a mirror of higher education demographics. Today, you could be forgiven for thinking that figures have now finally levelled and that Hollande's achievement only reflects new demographics, but it is not quite the case yet. Looking at some of the figures, we're getting to parity at Sciences-Po, but women still only represent a third of students in ENA's early 2000s numbers. This is the reason Hollande's decisions feel both normal and yet extraordinary as they both anticipate and give momentum to a soon-to-be-realised prophecy. When there is parity in higher education, there will be no reason or any excuse for gender inequality in government.  the