In the debate over gender parity in French Politics, many pro-paritaires held a differentialist discourse, whereby they claimed that women’s relationship to politics, to the political class, and to political communication was different (and better) than that of men. Such a claim was useful both as a way of explaining reasons for women’s exclusion (as intruses in a male-dominated culture) and, because different was equated with better, to justify positive discrimination on the grounds of the benefits which women’s inclusion would bring to politics as a whole. It was also problematic, in that it challenged the notion of universalism, as a result of which the pro-parity lobby made a debatable distinction between gender and other forms of socio-cultural diversity, such as class, religion or ethnicity.

This paper critically examines the theory of gendered discourse in the debate on parity, and then proceeds to examine parity in practice (three elections since it was introduced into French law) and considers how the notion of gendered discourse has been used to electoral advantage or disadvantage, the extent to which there is evidence that political discourse is gendered, and the effects of separating gender from other forms of socio-cultural diversity. Does parity represent a cultural revolution, the modernisation of French politics, or a return to out-dated essentialism? How diversified is the modern French political class, and what is the influence of parity legislation and its implementation on this?