Paris City Government Fined for Appointing Too Many Women to Senior Positions

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo speaks during a press conference at Paris’ city hall in Oct. 2020. NICOLAS MESSYASZ/Getty Images

The city of Paris was levied a $109,000 (90,000 euro) fine Tuesday by the national government because the city’s female mayor, Anne Hidalgo, appointed too many women to senior positions at city hall. The fine was imposed by the Ministry of Public Service after more than two-thirds of Hidalgo’s 2018 appointments were women; 11 women and five men were given senior staff roles. The appointments technically ran afoul of French public sector employment law, passed in 2013, which stipulates that each gender should maintain a presence of at least 40 percent in government positions. “I am happy to announce we have been fined,” Hidalgo, who was elected in 2014 and reelected last year, said. “The management of the city hall has, all of a sudden, become far too feminist.”

Last year, the French law was updated for a pretty obvious reason: it was self-defeating, ultimately making it harder to increase representation of women in government roles. The 2019 waiver allows new hires to exceed the 60-40 gender balance, as long as they don’t lead to an overall gender imbalance beyond that threshold in the government workforce. Under the updated legislation, Le Monde reports, the city of Paris is in the clear, as women comprise 47 percent of city hall’s senior ranks, where they happed to be paid 6 percent less than their male colleagues. “Yes, we must promote women with determination and vigor, because the delay everywhere in France is still very great,” Hidalgo told the city council. “So yes, to promote and one day achieve parity, we must speed up the tempo and ensure that in the nominations there are more women than men.”

Even France’s Minister of Public Service Amélie de Montchalin, whose ministry imposed the fine, called the penalty “absurd.” “I want the fine paid by Paris for 2018 to finance concrete actions to promote women in the public service. I invite you to the ministry to discuss them,” Montchalin tweeted. Hidalgo said the city would pay the fine and she would deliver the check herself, along with all the women working for her in city hall. “So there will be many of us,” she said.

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