Good evening.
Mixedness is not won.
A month ago, I was at a dinner with a friend of mine
who had all the powers in life:
Financial Inspector, Chief of Staff to a Minister,
a prime minister (I will not mention his name),
director of a bank,
and he said to me, “Because of you, my retirement is done. “
I understood that he was referring
when quotas arrive on the boards.
The law will take effect next February,
and this law is not only happy,
because we had to impose this law.
But if the law was not imposed today,
we would take 190 years to reach parity in France.
I would be too old to be able to appreciate it.
In Italy, just over 800, but that’s another story.
Many men today, in all sectors –
economic, political, in the private, public sectors –
say, “It’s only for women. “
They dare to say that after having all the powers in life.
I do not believe that my friend or the men today
be more misogynist than before, really not,
but they do not support the rise of women.
Me neither, I’m not for quotas,
because I’m for the skill, like everyone here,
but at one point, it had to happen.
A long, long time ago,
and I just read an American book by Nicole Bacharan
who explains it very well, in his book “Sex in the United States”
which explains very well how much women have had to fight
for us to be here tonight and for me to be here,
and do what I did.
There were women who showed us the way
and that helped us to be what we are today.
But this fight we are fighting attracts its corollary of people
who do not support this rise in power of women,
that’s why I’m advocating today
a feminism that is no longer a feminism of confrontation,
but a more peaceful feminism, which I call a pragmatic feminism.
Because confrontation, feminism clash
will not bring anything good to our society.
There are too many clashes today in the world
and here too, especially in France.
(Applause)
I asked myself often,
while it’s been 10 years since we know the numbers
and the economic benefits of gender diversity,
I very often wondered why it was necessary to say again and again.
I think there is a need to repeat it
for the younger generation of women, for my daughter, her daughter,
the following figures, which were said a little earlier:
when there are more than three women on the boards,
the economic results of the companies are equal to or greater than 6%;
and another figure from a McKenzie study
which came out last year at the time of the Women’s forum:
if parity in the world was respected by 2025,
global GDP would increase between $ 12 trillion and $ 28 trillion.
You have to know this to understand the interest we all have in a mix
but to a peaceful mix and this soothing feminism,
because we can not live in this climate
and in this complexity that this relationship brings.
Myself, I adopted very long the codes of the masculine.
And it was said of me that I was running like a guy, and it was true.
I missed it a lot today and I had a lot of questions.
Especially since part of my career has been devoted to women
since I created the Women’s Forum 14 years ago.
Do you know why I created the Women’s Forum?
Because I heard about the World Economic Forum in Davos,
you know, this place that meets every year in January
the leaders of this world.
Everyone said that Davos was the future.
I too thought that I was thinking about the future, so I wanted to go there.
I registered, I never had an answer to my request.
I was willing to pay a lot, though, to go.
I asked myself, I interviewed girlfriends who were going there,
but they tell me: “Yes, but you are a woman. “
“Well yes, you too. “
“But we work in big groups,
you, you run an SME. “
And in Davos they do not know what an SME is,
so women accounted for 4 to 5% of the Davos audience
and SMEs, they ignored them.
I’m Breton and stubborn and I get angry sometimes,
and anger made me write the concept of the Women’s Forum.
I loved doing this forum, I loved it because together with these women,
and some men, and that’s why in the first year,
I had Carlos Ghosn, Gerard Mestrallet, the president of Alcoa USA,
McKenzie President, Mohammed Yunus, I invited the men
because I understood that without men,
a women’s forum would remain a women’s forum.
And a women’s forum, it does not make things happen.
It’s quite strange, but 15 days ago, I was in Tunisia
and the officials came, the head of government, the ministers,
but they did not stay.
At one point, I get up, since they are leaving.
and I say to a major minister of the economy:
“You do not stay? “
He said to me, “No, I leave the women together. “
“Sir, you are Minister of the Economy,
in a country that has difficulties
and where did women have a major role and you do not want to listen to them? “
And they left. He looked at me disdainfully and all the men are gone.
And, 8 days before, I was at a forum in France called Africa 2016,
great, it was for Africa, it was very good,
95% of the public were men.
In these 95% of men, 80% were white males over 50 years old
find the mistake.
When we know the age of leaders in Africa today,
and when we know the role of women,
there are some of abnormal.
And so I’ll talk to you about my own quotas afterwards.
So I did this Women’s Forum, with a lot of happiness.
The forum developed very quickly, maybe a little too fast
for the SME I had and I sold it to Publicis
so that he can continue his journey; he continues today.
It was difficult.
(Applause)
I made a burnout; it does not happen only to men,
contrary to what Marie-Christine said earlier.
It took me a long time to get out and I got out
because I went to the field.
I went, among others, to the DRC and there, I saw what was worse,
what we could do to women, children,
to little girls and I told myself that my problem was not important,
that finally there was much more important than me.
When I came back to France, I wrote a book,
“Woman, if you dare, the world will be better,”
and I decided to recreate a business,
because that’s the only thing I know how to do.
I created the forum “Dare France”.
(Applause)
The forum Osons la France, I created it because I was tired of my country,
from what I heard abroad,
tired of being always complaining
while there were things so difficult elsewhere.
I developed this business very quickly, too fast there too,
it’s the problem of a personality that at one point,
can not fight against this energy,
you have to know how to channel it.
I developed very quickly this company,
unfortunately last year I had a big glitch
but I promise you, I will not cry.
I filed the balance sheet of all my boxes, 3 boxes in 9 months.
I experienced an extremely difficult thing
which led me to write a book called “Forcing Fate”.
The subtitle is “I chose success and failure caught me. “
I did in this work of writing, a work on my own past,
but also on the situation of women in the face of failure.
and I realized that we did not have all
the same reactions, that we dragged this guilt often throbbing
what is ours and what lack of confidence we have in us
could very quickly rise to the surface.
And it was something terrible to live
and everyone who saw me as
this girl, she succeeds all she walks,
obviously, what I’m doing is making noise,
because I put my energy, but suddenly the failure is even more violent.
And this failure, there are few people who could share it,
because people said:
“You, a failure, but no, you look very good. “
But that’s not how life is,
it’s not because we look good we’re fine, we can hide things.
So suddenly, I decided, after this failure,
I did not know yet that I was going to take care of women in Africa,
but I took care of a college in the 93,
because Simone Veil had introduced me a few years ago,
one of my friends, who is present I hope here,
Samia Essabaa who is a teacher in a college in the 93 in Noisy-le-Sec,
a high school professional, and Samia fights every year to take his students,
her young, as she says, her children, boys and girls,
in difficult countries
to show these young people that what they are living to them,
this mix so difficult in the suburbs,
because it’s not just a CAC 40 problem,
it is a bourgeois problem, the mixed is a problem of education,
it’s a problem we have around us
and that explains a lot of things today in France
and in the rough neighborhoods, and Samia is fighting.
So what I do for her is that I hit my bourgeois friends,
I ask them for money.
Maybe I’ll hit you there after, because the next trip
(Applause)
we take them to Auschwitz, we take them on March 6th.
Because there is a need, that today’s young people see
that there were even more difficult things
and that may perhaps relativize their own sadness,
their own sufferings and their own dramas.
And this mixity in the suburbs,
I apprehended her a lot through Samia
and when last year I filed for bankruptcy
and that I still did not have the idea to restart a business
because I lost my energy – it happens, and it happened to me –
I decided to launch what I call today The unlikely club.
The improbable club, what is it?
I gathered, and I should not laugh, because the origin of that,
is that there have been attacks in France and that too is a subject of men,
because we never see women take up arms, or very rarely.
And women in the suburbs are suffering, to an incredible degree.
So I decided to bring them together every quarter.
Last time was at L’Oreal, the next is at Auféminin.com.
I gathered with these women, about 60-70,
the last time we were even 80, 30 of my friends,
who occupy incredible positions in life, and I put them together,
just so they know each other
because this mix of both sides of the device is necessary
the balance we need here too in France.
Once I put that in place,
I had to make a living because I had lost a lot of money,
and that I had to work and so I decided to create,
at the request of African friends, Women in Africa.
It’s a global women’s economic forum to be held in Ethiopia
in May.
I’m leaving Sunday to meet the government,
to make sure of security, obtaining visas …
I was last week in Nigeria,
I meet women in every country where I go
and I’m putting them in a global network,
because I think the world of tomorrow will be a world
much more peaceful when there will be men and women together
and earlier I told you about my quotas, and my quotas,
is that for this forum, Women in Africa, to take the road
and be considered, I decided that there would be 25% of men.
So gentlemen, if you want to come, you let us know,
we are ready to invite you because I want there to be 25% of men,
for men to understand that a forum in Africa,
in a country that will bring us a lot,
– we have a program called Reverse Innovation –
let’s always forget that Africa can bring us a lot
and that it can go in this direction and not only in that one.
That’s what I would like to do today,
it’s my fight tomorrow,
but is it a fight, I do not think so.
It is a deep desire that I have of a feminism soothed,
of a pragmatic feminism.
I would like to finish by giving you an African proverb:
hens know when the day comes up
but they leave it to the cock to announce it.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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