La vie en rose 玫瑰人生

MOST French bosses have little time for a new law, now going through parliament, which would compel listed companies to lift the proportion of women on their boards to 40% by 2016. Xavier Fontanet, chief executive of Essilor, an eyewear firm, has quoted Charles de Gaulle as saying, “One may not command without having obeyed.” His point is that few women have had the 30 years or so of experience climbing the corporate ladder that a good director requires.
现在，大部分法国公司的老板们被一项即将通过的新法案搞得措手不及：这项法案要求上市公司在2016年之前将董事会成员中的女性比例提升到40%。法国眼镜公司依视路的总裁Xavier Fontanet援引戴高乐的名言“没有服从过就不会领导”，指出极少有女性具备在企业晋升制度里摸爬滚打超过三十年的经验----而这是一位好领导所必须具备的。更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

Nonetheless, the government is determined to make France the second country with a compulsory quota for women in the boardroom. (Norway was the first.) At the start of the year women occupied just 11% of the total of around 580 board seats at France’s biggest 40 firms. Now bosses will have to find as many as 170 new female directors in six years, according to OFG Research. “We are looking for women to fill every seat vacated by a man,” says Diane Segalen, vice-chairman of CTPartners, a headhunting firm in Paris.
然而，当局是铁了心要把法国打造成世界第二个强制实行董事会性别配额的国家（挪威是首创）。年初的时候，在法国最大的40家公司里总数约580个董事会席位中，这一比例还只占到了11%。根据OFG调查公司的估算，现在老板们不得不在6年的时间里新找到170女董事。巴黎的猎头公司CTPartners的副主席Diane Segalen说道：“一旦有男性从董事会离职，我们就四处搜寻符合董事会条件的女性来填补。”

In private, chief executives say they will look for female board members of a particular type: those who will look decorative and not rock the boat. One boss asked a headhunter for photographs of candidates and said he would treat looks as his first criterion, ahead of industry experience. A board member of a multinational company who opposes the 40% quota said that bosses could simply appoint their wives or—more subtly—their girlfriends.
私底下，行政总裁们戏说他们要找的女董事应该是这样：起装饰作用而不是威胁作用。有老板甚至要求猎头公司提供求职者的照片，声称首要条件是相貌而不是行业经验。一位反对新法案的董事会成员认为这会导致一些老板直接把老婆甚至是将情人“塞”进董事会。

Some recent appointments have certainly raised eyebrows. In March Dassault Aviation, a manufacturer of fighter planes and corporate jets, said it would nominate Nicole Dassault, the 79-year-old wife of Serge Dassault, its controlling shareholder, to its board. Mrs Dassault has little hands-on business experience. LVMH has nominated Bernadette Chirac, the 76-year-old wife of the former French president. Mrs Chirac’s qualifications, explained the company, were that she was female and that as first lady she supported fashion and regularly attended catwalk shows.
一些新上任的女董事也确实引起了一些争议：战斗机和喷气式飞机制造商达索公司准备提名它的控股股东Dassault先生的妻子，79岁的Nicole Dassault为董事会成员，但Dassault女士几乎没有半点商业经验；路易威登则已经准备提名法国前总统76岁的妻子Bernadette Chirac,而选择这位女士的原因,公司的解释是这样的： Chirac女士是一名女性，再者，她作为第一夫人期间，积极支持时尚业并且经常出入时装表演秀。

Companies with no family controlling shareholder, to be sure, will be expected to propose more qualified candidates. But finding them is not always easy. Sanofi-Aventis, a pharmaceuticals firm, was disappointed when Catherine Bréchignac, the head of the national science research agency, withdrew her candidacy. Some firms are tackling the shortage of senior women with direct experience of their industry by looking far outside. Vivendi, a telecoms and media group, for instance, found Aliza Jabès, the glamorous founder of NUXE, a beauty-products firm, having used her in an ad campaign for its corporate mobile-phone products.
可以肯定的是，不同于上述家族企业，对于非家族企业来说，他们更可能看重的是求职者的个人能力。可是找到这样的女性有时候并不简单。所以当国家科研机构的头目Catherine Bréchignac女士退出了董事申请，赛诺菲-安万特制药公司就相当的郁闷。面临这样的难题，有些公司则干脆不找本行业的人员，改从外行业引进女董事。例如，媒体跨国集团维旺迪公司就相中了Aliza Jabès----美容产品公司NUXE极具个人魅力的创始人，并且在维旺迪商务手机的广告推广中Aliza Jabès女士已经开始发挥作用。

So far, says Pierre-Yves Gomez of EMLYON Business School, appointments such as Mrs Chirac’s confirm that the first reaction of French chief executives is to find women who will not challenge them. Because companies must find a lot of them in a short time, some women will gather many board seats. One female director, indeed, has had seven offers since January. A perverse effect of the quota, therefore, says Mr Gomez, may be to reduce rather than increase board diversity.
EMLYON商学院的Pierre-Yves Gomez认为到目前为止，诸如任命Chirac女士的行为说明法国的行政总裁们对新法案的头一个念头，就是找那些不会威胁到他们地位的人：公司们必须在短时间填入大量的女性，所以她们其中的一些可能会取得多个董事会席位，而且自从1月起，确实已经有女性获得了7张任命书。Gomez认为，平衡董事成员性别比例的新法案可能适得其反----也就是说，可能会降低董事会的多元化。