The text, presented by Marie-Pierre Rixain, LRM deputy for the Essonne department, targets companies with at least 1,000 employees. By 2027, women must make up at least 30% of "top management and executive management". This percentage will be increased to 40 % three years later. Employers who fall short of this quota will face a "financial penalty" of up to 1% of the wage bill. The amount will be determined by the services of the Ministry of Labour, taking into account the economic health of the company, the efforts it has made to comply with its obligations and the reasons why it has failed to do so.

The text clearly follows on from the so-called "Copé-Zimmermann Law" of January 2011, which has helped to increase the number of women on boards of directors and supervisory boards. The aim of Ms. Rixain and her colleagues is to go one step further and this time target the highest management positions.

According to a study by law firm Heidrick & Struggles, there is only one woman at the top of a CAC 40 group in France - Catherine MacGregor at Engie (formerly GDF Suez). In 2020, there were only 11 women CEOs in the 120 companies with the highest market capitalisation, according to MEDEF.

Even though the bill has achieved broad consensus, there is also criticism. Martine Filleul, PS senator from the Nord department, also gave her imprimatur to the bill in the Joint Joint Committee, even though she considers the progress to be slow.

In addition, the representative of the employers' organisation Medef, Armelle Carminati-Rabasse, had expressed strong reservations about the mechanism at a hearing in the Senate on 29 September in the run-up to the first reading. Among other things, she criticised the sanctions as unreasonable.

The final adoption of the text is scheduled for 13 December.