Louise WEISS, journalist and politician, talks about women’s right to vote in Europe and France at the beginning of the 20th century. She explains that the only way to make their voice heard to obtain the right to vote was to seize public opinion by organizing actions in the street.
On the Champs Elysées, young and older women are questioned about politics: they are not interested or against and leave this to men. Women, although representing 52% of the electorate, abstain from voting. They are under-represented in Parliament, as in all European countries. A woman talks about the subjugation of women and explains their lack of interest in politics.
Interview with women’s rights activist Betty NEGRAND, on her disillusionment with women and politics. Despite obtaining the right to vote after the Second World War, she explains that the number of women in the Assembly has not changed since the Liberation. Men quickly regained their predominant place.
Passers-by give their opinions on women’s right to vote, their relationship with politics and gender equality. While most passers-by consider the right to vote a step forward, one of them "finds it ridiculous... she has enough to do.. taking care of her household, her home." A man evokes the political struggles of Louise Weiss.
Thanks in part to their involvement in the Resistance during the Occupation, the French women won the right to vote and stand for election on April 21, 1944. After the Liberation, women occupied their place in allied troops, had access to elective magistracies, and entered the political sphere. Four women jurors sit on the Court of Justice in Paris, women have become mayor, and the Union des femmes françaises, the result of the Women’s Committees of the Resistance, is holding its first major meeting. In Paris, images of a group of women soldiers, of the four women jurors of the Court of Justice. In a city hall, a woman mayor pronounces her first marriage. Images of the "first big meeting" of the Union des femmes françaises, extracts of the speeches of Claudine MICHAUT, "of the steering committee"; and of Marie BELL, of the French Comedy.
Les élections municipales, les premières depuis la Libération, ont donné aux femmes le droit de vote pour la première fois en France. Reportage à Paris dans les bureaux de vote. Parmi les électrices et les électeurs, on reconnait plusieurs personnalités comme Jeanne Boitel, Marie Dubas, Irène Joliot Curie, Gilberte Brossolette, Maurice Thorez, Francisque Gay, Yvonne De Gaulle.