French Tech facing the challenge of gender parity

Women are under-represented in digital professions. Andrey Popov/Andrey Popov – stock.adobe.com

“The findings are alarming.” Clara Chappazdirector of the French Techpaints an unvarnished picture of the lack of diversity in tech. “Last year, only one in ten start-ups were founded by an all-female team and 88% of funds raised in 2021 were awarded to all-male teams. Moreover, a quarter of start-ups have no women on their management committee. All tech players agree: in the digital professions, women are absent or under-represented. “The disparities are huge between sectors”, concedes Florian Fournier, co-founder of PayFit. While 50% of the company’s workforce are women, they only represent a quarter of the start-up’s engineers. And among developers, the proportion of women does not exceed 8%.

Too small a pool

Several companies are trying to move the lines in this job-providing sector. Since last May, 160 start-ups have signed the French Tech parity pact, which sets…