France's Transversal Budget Document on Gender Equality (DPT Égalité Femmes-Hommes)

France attaches a Document de politique transversale (DPT) on gender equality to its annual Budget Bill, listing every ministry's spending judged to contribute to equality between women and men. The statutory basis is Article 128 of Loi n°2005-1720 (30 December 2005), amended repeatedly since; the DPT format in its current shape dates to around 2010 and continues through the PLF2026 budget.
The PLF2025 edition identifies credits across roughly 48 budget programmes totalling €5.8 billion in commitment authority, with 2023 execution reaching €6.5 billion; within that, the dedicated Programme 137 'Égalité entre les femmes et les hommes' itself amounts to €85.1 million in the PLF2025. A joint 2024 inspection by the Inspection générale des finances and Inspection générale des affaires sociales (IGF/IGAS) cites a 23% gender pay gap and 16% wealth gap, and estimates gender discrimination costs France 4-12% of GDP.
Both the Cour des comptes (2023) and IGF/IGAS (2024) are sharply critical of the mechanism itself. The Cour des comptes found the DPT's credit growth from €128 million (2017) to €3.3 billion (2024) reflects reclassification of existing spending into scope rather than new investment — a 'trompe-l'œil' of political commitment. IGF/IGAS found the 2018-19 pilot to integrate gender into budgeting had disappointing results, that the DPT excludes Social Security spending entirely despite it funding major equality levers, and that a legal requirement since 2012 to assess gender impact ex ante is 'almost never' actually carried out.

Read the full analysis: https://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/static/17/Annexes-DL/PLF2025-Oranges/09-Orange%20%C3%89galite_femmes_hommes.pdf