France

Antoinette Fouque, the co-founder the French Women’s Liberation Movement, has died at the age of 77.

She died at her home in Paris between Wednesday night and early Thursday morning.

Born in Marseille in 1936, she earned a doctorate in political science, and started out as a teacher. In 1964 became a literary critic and translator.

We invite you to read the full article published February 23, 2014

It's raining machismo in France. Chucking it down, in fact.

From parliament to local councils, via national media and regional newspapers, storms have erupted as French men indulge in misogynist outbursts that could have come from the cave age.

Now, thanks to the name-and-shame tactics of social media networks, France's long-suffering women, who might previously have shrugged off such attacks as everyday sexism and machismo, are hitting back.

Four women, one seat. So far, the 2014 mayoral election in Paris is a single-sex contest.

The two biggest parties have chosen their candidates: Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, of the center-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), and Anne Hidalgo of the Parti Socialiste (PS).

Two other women are also widely expected to fight for the mayor seat against candidates from several smaller parties: Marielle de Sarnez of the centrist MoDem and the Green party leader Cecile Duflot.

The two biggest parties have chosen their candidates: Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, of the center-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), and Anne Hidalgo of the Parti Socialiste (PS).

Two other women are also widely expected to fight for the mayor seat against candidates from several smaller parties: Marielle de Sarnez of the centrist MoDem and the Green party leader Cecile Duflot.

PARIS -- The politician known as “NKM” is a rising star in France - a tough, military-trained engineer first elected to the National Assembly at the age of just 29 and tipped by some as a future president.

And what is all-the-more remarkable about Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet is that she has managed to fight her way through the rampant sexism of French politics.

She was twice told by two of her own party’s leaders that she’d missed out on becoming a government minister because she was pregnant.