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French law hesitates when it comes to enact specific legal measures concerning women. Nonetheless, feminist ideas and movements have been as strong in France as in other western countries and legal careers are as open to women as anywhere else in the European Union. Intending to gloss this paradox, the authors argue that the French position is grounded on a broader conception of law as a general rule and of the individual as an abstract subjective entity, as opposed to a judge-made and inductive common law. The authors consider this abstraction as having brought however some progress in equality between men and women, even though a more concrete law-making becomes efficient in various fields, for example the rules concerning access to political responsibilities.