The Parity Pact has already been signed by a majority of the start-ups and companies that make up the Next40 and the French Tech 120.
The observation is not new: today there are still too few women in the management teams and governing bodies of French Tech companies. In this sense, several companies from the Next 40 and French Tech 120 programs have been discussing, since March, to share their ideas and their ambitions on parity between women and men as well as the actions to be taken, to train what the we call the “Parity Pact”.
69 companies from French Tech programs are committed to gender parity
The Parity Pact brings together concrete commitments that have already been signed by 69 companies, that is to say more than half of the start-ups and companies that make up the two programs. Among the signatories, we find several unicorns, such as Alan, Ankorstore, BlaBlaCar, Contentsquare, Deezer, Dental Monitoring, Doctolib, Ledger, Mirakl, Payfit, Qonto, Spendesk, Swile, Veepee and Vestiaire Collective, but also start-ups such as 360Learning , Devialet, Heetch, JobTeaser, Mano Mano, Mum, OpenClassRooms, Selectra, Sendinblue, Withings, Younited or Yousign.
The 69 signatories made five commitments that will help lead concrete actions over time.
- Committed companies must, within their board, reach a minimum threshold of 20% women by 2025, then 40% by 2028;
- The signatories must train 100% of managers on the issues of diversity and the fight against harassment and discrimination, by the end of the current year;
- They must guarantee that all of the job descriptions published by the company are aimed at both female and male profiles;
- In addition, the signatories undertake to form a joint team of representatives, who will speak on behalf of the company, both internally and externally, before the end of 2022;
- Finally, the companies that commit promise to set up specific support for each employee on their return from parental leave, before the end of the year.
Long-term work and commitments
Under the impetus of the French Tech Mission, the Parity Pact is based on two key ambitions. The first consists of committing start-ups and signatory companies to long-term work. The goal is to deploy the commitments that we have just listed, to advance equality between women and men, a major cause of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term.
The other major ambition is to bet on a snowball effect and create emulation in the French Tech ecosystem, to go beyond the five commitments and any good practices.
” The need for the French Tech Mission to act in favor of parity in the start-up ecosystem has become obvious to us.explains the director of the French Tech Mission, Clara Chappaz. There are currently no female CEOs among the Next40 companies and only 7 in the French Tech 120. There are several levers to create the conditions for change: the proactive commitment of companies is one of them. […] We will continue, with the signatories and all the volunteers within the French Tech ecosystem, long-term work to accelerate in favor of more equality between women and men in start-ups. “, she concludes.
Source: Government
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