France launches international strategy for feminist foreign policy
The French government has adopted a new strategy that places the rights of women and girls and gender equality at the centre of its foreign policy.
Its latest ‘International strategy for a feminist foreign policy’, launched in April, runs from 2025 to 2030 and makes gender equality a priority “in every field of its European and international action… without exception”.
This includes peace and security, climate and the environment, humanitarian action, economics and trade, health, education, and digital technology.
The government said that “all methods of diplomatic, bilateral and multilateral action, as well as consular activities, are concerned”.
The strategy centres on five core pillars: defending rights and freedoms; fostering participation and representation in all decision-making processes; fighting against gender-based inequalities; combatting gender-based violence; and mobilising financing to progress towards gender equality.
The eight-page document begins with key statistics on gender inequalities around the world. For example, the UN has found that conflict-related sexual violence increased by 50% between 2022 and 2023, that women and children are 14 times more likely than men to die during natural disasters, and that 133 women were killed every day by an intimate partner of member of their family in 2022.
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‘Working differently’ to achieve aims
The strategy notes that UN Women estimates that at the current rate, it will take 300 years to achieve gender equality.
As such “France must continue and step up its action on gender equality amid a growing number of crises, a rise in anti-rights movements and wider-spread conservatism in all bodies”, the government said.
It describes the aims of its new strategy as “concrete and increasingly ambitious”
The 13 priority commitments include promoting and defending sexual and reproductive health and rights, strengthening the implementation of the Support Fund for Feminist Organizations, and defending women’s rights in the digital environment.
The government said achieving these commitments and implementing relevant policies “requires working differently”.
It said it would do this by facilitating “robust dialogue” on women’s and girls’ rights and gender equality with all countries, by taking a participatory approach built in collaboration with civil society, and by promoting international expertise and research.
Collective work will be led by the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs with other ministries, the diplomatic and consular network, and with French agencies, and “rigorous monitoring” is to be undertaken by the independent High Council for Gender Equality.
Leading financier of feminist organisations
The new strategy – which aligns with the country’s Interministerial Plan for Gender Equality 2023-2027 – is France’s latest feminist foreign policy, having adopted its first in 2019.
Since then the country has led European Union negotiations on the Women on Boards Directive and the Pay Transparency Directive, launched campaigns during its G7 presidency such as ‘Gender at the Centre’ for girls’ education, and created the Laboratory for Women’s Rights Online among other initiatives.
It also co-hosted the Generation Equality Forum with UN Women and Mexico in 2021, where US$40bn was pledged to advance gender equality worldwide, and has, it says, become the world’s leading financier of feminist organisations.
According to the French government, it was the fourth country to adopt a feminist foreign policy – after Sweden, Canada and Luxembourg – and a total of 15 countries have now made similar commitments.
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About Mia Hunt
Mia has been editor of globalgovernmentforum.com since 2019. She has 15 years’ experience as a journalist and editor and specialises in writing for civil and public servants worldwide, including covering sustainability policy and related issues. She has led the Global Government Women’s Network since it launched in 2023. Previously, she covered commercial property having been market reports and supplements editor at Property Week and deputy editor at Retail Destination. She graduated from Kingston University London with a first-class honours degree in journalism and was part of the team that produced The River newspaper, which won Publication of the Year at the Guardian Student Media Awards in 2010.
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