The place of women in politics in France has evolved over the centuries. While in the Middle Ages, many of them had access to certain important functions and exercised power, their status changed under the Ancien Régime: the laws surrounding the succession of the children of Philip IV condemned women de jure and de facto to a non-political role. A phase of emancipation then emerged. It ranges from the first claims of the Revolution with Olympe de Gouges and Anne-Josèphe Théroigne de Méricourt, to those of the feminists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries such as Louise Weiss, up to a more modern form, in a France still plagued by inequalities, like Simone de Beauvoir or Françoise Giroud. The word "feminism" itself, wrongly attributed to Charles Fourier by Louis-Devance (who does not cite his source), was coined by a French doctor named Ferdinand Valère Faneau de la Cour, in a medical work dating from 1871 entitled Du féminisme et de l'infantilisme chez les tuberculeux, but the first political activist to use it regularly is Hubertine Auclert, in 1882.Les collections de L'Histoire, "When Women Take Power", No. 34, 2006, page 94.
Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages, married women had advanced rights and played an important role. They could thus inherit lands, manage fiefs when their husbands were absent, and seize courts. The jurist Philippe de Beaumanoir notes thus "Ladies should not be left without a dower".Le Point-Historia, "100 Received Ideas on Women in History", No. 5, 2011, page 31. Christine de Pizan, in Le Livre des trois vertus writes:Le Point-Historia, "100 Received Ideas on Women in History", No. 5, 2011, page 33.
In 1401, she also attacks the hatred of women present in the book Roman de la Rose (13th century).Johann Fleuri, "Employment or Child, the Japanese Dilemma", article originally published in October 2015 under the title "Japanese Women Unwanted at Work", Manière de voir No. 150, December 2016 – January 2017, p. 64-64. Women like Delphine de Sabran in Provence or Gabrielle de la Trémoille (who manages the accounts of her lands and organizes the defense of the Île de Noirmoutier) thus govern truly. Women generally inherited fiefs if they had no descendants or by virtue of specific clauses in their marriage contract: thus, Eleanor of Aquitaine was duchess before her marriage to Louis VII and retained it during her remarriage to Henry II of England; one can also mention Ermengarde of Narbonne or Anne of Brittany. William the Conqueror imposed his wife, Matilda of Flanders, as responsible in his absence (either in France or in England).
Until the 9th century, marriage was a matter of private law. It was under the impetus of Louis the Pious (king from 814 to 840) that Frankish monarchs converted to monogamy, out of religious concern and to oppose the customs of the Barbarians. In the 11th century, the Gregorian reform put an end to clerical marriage.
Salic Law
It was political motives more than criticisms against women that led the great nobles of the Kingdom of France to exclude women from the throne; indeed, according to the expression, the throne must not fall from lance to distaff. The succession of Philip IV the Fair, who died in 1314, was chaotic: Louis X reigned only two years and had no male heir, whereas since Hugh Capet, the succession to the throne of France had never posed a problem, due to the constant presence of a direct male heir. Louis X did have a son, John (who would be called John I), but he was not yet born. In the meantime, Philip, brother of Louis X, became regent of the Kingdom of France, a function he was ready to assume until the future John I came of age. However, the latter was stillborn, and attention then turned to Louis X's other child, Joan, a daughter. Philip pretexted her youth and the suspicion of being an illegitimate child to sideline her (referring to the Nesle Tower affair) and hastened events by quickly having himself crowned king at the Cathedral of Reims, under escort, in January 1317. Joan was therefore not initially ousted as a daughter, with the University of Paris declaring on 3 February 1317:Les collections de L'Histoire, "When Women Take Power", No. 34, 2006, page 47.
Moreover, while no woman had become "King of France," some had held principalities, and Mahaut of Artois as Countess of Artois was a peer of the Kingdom of France (before her, one could also mention Eleanor of Aquitaine, duchess); also, Philip the Fair's wife was Queen of Navarre under the name of Joan I, and Louis X had issued a decree for the succession of the Kingdom of Poitiers specifying that:Les collections de L'Histoire, "When Women Take Power", No. 34, 2006, page 48.
Philip IV's great-aunt, Agnes of France, convened the , where Philip V, succeeding in having the custom interpreted in his favor, the assembly affirmed and approved his accession to the detriment of Louis X's daughter, Joan. He thus legitimized his right to the crown of France to the detriment of women's claim to it. The Salic law was not yet mentioned, but this legal provision was the first step towards the legal exclusion of women from the throne of France.
Philip V died in 1322 without a male heir (but with four daughters). The principles of 1317 then applied. Charles, younger brother of Louis X and Philip, became king under the name of Charles IV but died in 1328; he had only a daughter. There was then no longer a male heir among Philip the Fair's sons, and given the provisions of 1317 concerning women, the question of succession arose again. It was necessary to establish an even stronger principle of the impossibility for women to access the throne, since the King of England Edward III (son of King Edward II, husband of Isabella of France, Philip IV's daughter) now posed as the legitimate heir to the throne. Since the King of England was from a female branch, the French crown then fell to a cousin from the Valois house, who became Philip VI (based on the Latin phrase nemo dat quod non-habet: "no one gives what he does not have"). Edward then renounced and swore allegiance a year later.
Reliance was also placed on Roman law, particularly the Digest of the Corpus Juris Civilis (V, 1, 12), which excluded women from public offices, and texts from the early Frankish monarchy were sought, even fabricated. Unlike the English throne, which had fixed rules, succession in France was according to custom, from Hugh Capet to the Estates of 1317. This exclusion was then justified by texts that had fallen into disuse, dating from the Salian Franks (around 507 to 511): they had nothing to do with royal succession but concerned customary laws of the Barbarians, including inheritance provisions: according to an article of this text, no woman could bequeath a plot of land to an heir (the last paragraph of article 62 De alodis, On Private Property, notes: "As for the Salic land, let no part of the inheritance go to a woman, but let the entire inheritance be transmitted to the male sex"). However, a provision from 575 by King Chilperic notes that in the absence of a male heir, women can inherit and possess with the same rights as men, and the transformation of legal codes by Charlemagne into the Lex Salica Carolina forgot the content of these rules, keeping only the historical and archaic cement of France. The manuscript was brought to light in the library of Saint-Denis by the chronicler , and somewhat falsified and over-interpreted to justify the exclusion of women from royal succession.Éliane Viennot, La France, les femmes et le pouvoir, volume 1, L'invention de la loi salique (5th–16th centuries), 2006 Jean Jouvenel, advisor to King Charles VII, completed this reasoning by arguing that "queens, wives of kings, are consecrated only with common chrism and are therefore incapable of healing scrofula", thus unable to continue the thaumaturgical tradition of the kings of France. Thus, by playing with texts, the Salic law imposed itself and became anchored in the French monarchical landscape until the last King of France, Louis Philippe I, in 1848. The future Henry IV would also claim the Salic law to assert his right to the throne of France after the death of Henry III.
This did not prevent some women from taking the lead of principalities, such as Duchess Anne of Brittany, who reigned between 1488 and 1514.
Regencies
Some women nevertheless accessed the regency of the kingdom: indeed, no strict law framed this within the Fundamental laws of the Kingdom of France.Les collections de L'Histoire, "When Women Take Power", No. 34, 2006, page 42. Bertrada of Laon exerted a strong influence on her sons (the future Charlemagne and Carloman I). Anne of Kiev was thus named regent on behalf of the future Philip I. Before dying, Louis VIII chose Blanche of Castile to ensure the regency of Louis IX in 1226; he also entrusted her with the regency of the kingdom in 1248 when he left for the crusade in the Holy Land. Charles VI having become mad, his wife Isabeau of Bavaria presided from 1393 over a Regency Council, where the Greats of the Kingdom sat, but due to her poor mastery of French and lack of allies, she remained politically isolated, plundered the treasury, and allowed John the Fearless to access power). In other cases, the king's death being accidental, for example, the former Queen of France seemed best placed to take the reins of the kingdom until the majority of the one who was "already" King of France (the age of majority was 13 since an ordinance of Charles V promulgated in 1374). Thus, Anne de Beaujeu became regent with her husband between 1483 and 1491, at the beginning of the reign of Charles VIII, Catherine de' Medici between 1560 and 1564 for that of Charles IX (after the accidental death of Henry II and that of Francis II a year later), Marie de' Medici between 1610 and 1617 for Louis XIII (after the assassination of Henry IV; she had managed to be crowned Queen of France jointly on 13 May 1610, and succeeded in being granted the regency of the kingdom after her husband's assassination, assisted by Concino Concini), and Anne of Austria between 1643 and 1651 for Louis XIV. While her son, Francis I, engaged in the Italian War (1515–1516), Louise of Savoy ensured the regency of the kingdom, as well as later during the Italian War of 1521–1526; she negotiated the king's release after the Battle of Pavia and the Treaty of Cambrai with Margaret of Austria in 1529.Le Point-Historia, "100 Received Ideas on Women in History", No. 5, 2011, page 43. Also, from 1672, when the Dutch War began, in which King Louis XIV engaged, he entrusted the regency of the kingdom during his absence to his wife Maria Theresa, with broad political powers.Le Point-Historia, "100 Received Ideas on Women in History", No. 5, 2011, page 51.
After the death of Francis II, under whose short reign Catherine de' Medici had great influence, she convened the royal council and declared to its members:Les collections de L'Histoire, "When Women Take Power", No. 34, 2006, page 44.