French women had the right to vote 96 years after men: what about other European countries ?

Le droit de vote est assez récent en Europe. ILLUSTRATION UNSPLASH. – Antoine Schibler

Le droit de vote des femmes en France fête ses 80 ans ce 21 avril 2024. 96 ans après les hommes, les Françaises ont pu se rendre aux urnes. La France est le deuxième plus "mauvais élève" de l’Union européenne en la matière.

Almost a century late. 96 years after men in 1848, women had the right to vote in France. From 21 April 1944, their votes also began to count. Only one country in the European Union has waited so long to grant women this fundamental right: Hungary, with a 127-year gap compared to men, notes the Parity Observatory Occitanie.

Question of circumstances?

Geneviève Tapié, president of the Occitanie Parity Observatory, notes that France was not far from granting women the right to vote at the start of the 19th century.

But the war of 14-18 disrupted the suffragette movement in France. Citizens are asked to withdraw from social movements, in an effort "of sacred union". We would have to wait until two world wars to reconsider this fundamental right in democracy.

Good or bad students ?

The first European country to have accepted women at the ballot box was Finland in 1906 (at the same time as men), followed by Denmark in 1915. Incidentally, Helsinki voted for a set of equality law and becomes the first country in the world to allow a woman to be elected to Parliament.

At the end of the First World War, Germany, Austria, Ireland, Latvia and Poland also agreed on the issue. Followed by Poland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Except for Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands and Germany, women obtained the right to vote at the same time as men. On the English side, women's suffrage arrived in 1918. Only, a small peculiarity: it was only aimed at women aged over 30 until 1928.

Records

Other countries have only very recently granted the right to vote to all their citizens. Portugal is the last. And for good reason, during the post-war period, it was under the dictatorship of Salazar since 1932. The latter ended shortly after his death in 1970, and after some setbacks, from 1976, women can vote.

In the world, it was New Zealand which first granted women the right to vote: in 1873. If the pioneering nature of the country in this matter is well known , it hides a paradox. And for good reason, women did not have the right to be elected before 1916.

"We can affirm without false certainty that the right to vote is a right on which we will not go back, notes Dorian Dreuil , from the NGO Voted. And this can serve as an example for the conquest of & rsquo;other rights."