Recently, I have written an articles about France, which came about quite spontaneously—especially about beauty of Grand Est, and also about French culture of protests or situation in Marseille.
This time, next article is focuses on gender equality in France. According to the official Gender Equality Index 2025 published by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), France ranked second in the European Union, just behind Sweden. Denmark took third place.
I also find this topic interesting because some people claim that France is not doing as well, among others also due to the presence of people originating from countries outside the European Union. However, the results of the Gender Equality Index do not particularly support such a simplified views. Instead, the situation appears to have improved considerably over the past decade.
It is also interesting for me that some countries with a lower proportion of residents originating from outside the EU do not achieve scores as high in this index as countries where people from these regions are an established part of society.
Gender Equality Index
The Gender Equality Index is a tool developed by the European Institute for Gender Equality that compares European Union member states across six main domains: work, money, knowledge, time, power and decision-making, and health.
It is therefore not limited to women’s representation in politics or differences in pay. The index seeks to capture a broader picture of the social position of women and men, their economic opportunities, access to decision-making positions, and the conditions of everyday life.
The resulting scores make it possible to compare individual member states using a common methodology.
France in the European Comparison
France achieved a score of 73.4 points out of 100 in the Gender Equality Index 2025. Sweden, which ranked first, scored 73.7 points. The difference between the two countries is therefore just 0.3 points. Denmark, in third place, achieved 71.8 points. The European Union average was 63.4 points.
France’s score is ten points higher than the European average. This demonstrates that the country belongs to the group of member states achieving significantly above-average results in the overall assessment.
The long-term trend is also noteworthy. Since 2015, France’s score has increased from 64.1 to 73.4 points. Over this period, France therefore recorded an improvement of 9.3 points.
The Gender Equality Index 2025 thus offers another interesting perspective on contemporary France, this time through measurable results in the field of gender equality.
