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This paper examines the effect of family excess control on corporate social responsibility (CSR). It also considers the moderating role of board gender diversity in enhancing family firms’ social performance. Based on a sample of listed French companies, our results show that CSR performance decreases as family excess control increases. This finding is consistent with agency theory, which predicts that excess control encourages controlling parties to expropriate the interests of minority shareholders. Our empirical results also show that board gender diversity mitigates the opportunistic behavior of families toward stakeholders. We then consider the appointment of women to the board as an effective corporate governance mechanism to promote stakeholders’ interests, particularly as quotas mandating gender diversity on boards come into effect in France.