Draft Legislation Sets Quotas for Board Seats in France - Building Gender Balanced Business

• France is considering a bill that requires that companies have boards with at least 50% women by 2015.

• The legislation by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party also would require that women hold 20% of seats in 18 months, and 40% in four years.

• Women hold 10.5% of board seats at the French blue-chip CAC-40 companies.

• The legislation is similar to and in some ways stronger than the 2003 law that resulted in a 40% critical mass on boards in Norway. But that law had a shorter time frame for its only target.

• Daniel Lebègue, President of the French Institute of Directors, said the group had concluded, after resisting doing so, that quotas were the sole means of improving women’s share of directorships.

• Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, a member of the UMP, told ForbesWoman in a 2009 interview: ‘‘There should be determined action to include more women in power positions. I didn’t use to think it would require legislation or preferential treatment to advance women but I’ve changed my view because otherwise it’s going to take too long.’‘

• Women hold about 15% of board seats at US blue chips and 12.2% at top UK firms.

Sources: The Guardian, Forbes, The Age