Socialist Anne Hidalgo expected to become first female mayor of Paris [feedly]

Socialist Anne Hidalgo expected to become first female mayor of Paris
http://feedly.com/e/25I9CFrb

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Hidalgo pulls away from rightwing rival Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet in contest for French capital's powerful executive

By the end of the month – barring a physical or political earthquake – Paris will have its first Madame le Maire.

If the polls are accurate, the Socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo will get the keys to the city and the 150 sq metre mayoral office at the French capital's imposing Hôtel de Ville on the banks of the Seine.

Her centre-right rival, the former ecology minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, is far enough behind in the polls to make a comeback in the two rounds of voting this weekend and next unlikely, although not impossible.

Despite official figures showing that 80% of French women (compared with 40% in 1962) are working in 2014, and that 56% of students are female, and despite parity laws, women are far from equally represented in politics, making the Paris race something of an anomaly.

Only 27% of MPs in the Assemblée Nationale are women and only 22% of representatives in the Sénat, the upper house. The two leading parties – the Socialists and the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) – prefer to pay punitive fines than introduce quotas or field an equal number of female candidates.

But what, if anything, will it mean to have the French capital run by a woman for the first time? Parisian women seem unsure that having a female mayor will make much difference to their daily lives.

"If we were talking about a female president, now that would make a change, but we have already had women as mayors of major cities, like Martine Aubry in Lille," said Sabine, 27, a marketing analyst.