Country Profiles
France
Context
In 2022, Emmanuel Macron was re-elected for 5 years, but he lost his absolute majority at the National Assembly. It is the first time in more than 60 years that a party or an alliance does not have the absolute majority. The leftist parties gathered around the NUPES electoral alliance. The far-right has 89 seats, chairs several committees, which is a major shift in the political landscape. On the international scene, President Macron still seems quite influencing. France also had the Presidency of the Council of the EU in the first semester of 2022.
Policies & funding
France finally adopted its National Law on Development in 2021.
The text refers explicitly to the country’s feminist diplomacy and has a mainstream objective on gender equality. Free and equal access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services is one of the priorities of the law, with a specific indicator on modern contraception.
France also commits to dedicate 75% of its annual ODA budget to programmes with gender equality as a principal or significant objective (DAC 1 or 2) and 20% with gender equality as a principal objective (DAC 2) by 2025.
The government has been in the process of finalizing its new SRHR international strategy and Global Health strategy, expected to be published in 2023. The High Council for Gender Equality was re-appointed in April 2022. Its international commission, co-chaired by the French Countdown member Equipop, is in charge of the official evaluation of the 2018-2022 International Gender Equality Strategy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Most of the financial commitments come from the Generation Equality Forum (Beijing+25), held in Paris in 2021. France is particularly involved in the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) action coalition. In that context, the country committed to allocate an additional 100 million Euros to SRHR over five years, with the following breakdown: 90 million Euros to UNFPA Supplies, 5 million Euros to the SEMA initiative, and 5 million Euros to the ODAS programme for access to safe abortion. The government also committed to dedicate half of its pledge to the Global Partnership for Education (333 million Euros total) to girls’ education and to participate in the launch of the Partnership Forum on Comprehensive Sexuality Education led by UNFPA-UNESCO (no amount mentioned). In line with these commitments, France significantly increased its support to both SRH/FP and SRHR, as show in the tracking analysis.
France regularly takes diplomatic stances defending SRHR. Moreover, the country remains an important voting member of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.