Governing without Rights: the Paradoxes of the French
Popular Front
It was only with a decree introduced on April 21, 1944 that French women
obtained equal political rights. Nevertheless, in 1936 the president of the Socialist
city council, Léon Blum, assigned three women a role in the government.
These two events are peculiar, and they occupy a particular role in
French women’s history. They raise the issue of the reasons behind these
nominations, as well as the reasons for “French lateness”. Most importantly,
they allows us to investigate the ambivalence of a man, a party, and a society
faced with women’s vote and access to power.