France breaks record, elects record number of women to parliament

France's Parliamentary election results released on Monday showed that the country voted a record number of women into parliament, after President Emmanuel Macron's decision to field a gender-balanced candidate list for his victorious Republic on the Move (LREM) party.


Out of the 577 newly elected lawmakers, 233 were female, beating the previous record of 155 set in the last election.

The record sent France from 64th to 17th in the world rankings of female parliamentary representation and to 6th place in Europe, overtaking the likes of Britain and Germany, according to Inter-parliamentary Union data compiled at the start of June.

The LREM party, which won an overwhelming majority in Sunday's ballot, had the highest proportion of women elected, at 47 percent.

"For the first time under the (postwar) Fifth Republic, the National Assembly will be deeply renewed - more diverse, younger," the party's acting president, Catherine Barbaroux, said.

"But above all, allow me to rejoice, because this is a historic event for the representation of women in the National Assembly."

Female representation in the French National Assembly has risen steadily in the recent years from 12.3 percent at the 2002 election to 38.6 percent this year.

France has a system in which funding for political parties is restricted if women do not make up at least 49 per cent of its parliamentary candidates, but most parties still put up more men for election.

Reuters