EUROPE

French President Nicolas Sarkozy appointed 11 women ministers in his cabinet, including the interior and economic ministers. France, which witnessed a riveting fight between Sarkozy and Segolene Royal in the last presidential election, saw another female fight within the Socialist party with Martine Aubry, a former labor minister defeating Royal to head the Socialist party. But what this nail-biting fight didn’t tell you was: i) this country of Joan of Arc and Simone de Beauvoir ranks 72nd worldwide, behind Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan and Togo, in women’s representation in national parliaments and ii) there are fewer women in the National Assembly now than in 1945.

Angela Merkel, the first woman Chancellor of Germany, is considered by Forbes magazine as the “most powerful woman in the world at the present time.” But here’s a sobering reality check: half of Europe’s citizens are women, but only 30 per cent of the members of the European Parliament are women.

Russia’s Valentina Matvienko, the Governor of St Petersburg, has been rated by Forbes as being one of the most influential women politicians of 2008 but women politicians in Russia remain a rarity with only 62 women among 388 men in the Russian Duma.

In Spain, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero unveiled a woman-dominated cabinet in April this year. Nine of his ministers are women—including defence minister Carme Chacon, a rising star in the Socialist Party—and eight men. Italy, too, has a strong women presence, with four women in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s cabinet, including Mara Carfagna, a former Italian showgirl who is the Minister of Equal Opportunities.

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