France has never had a woman as president. With a number of female candidates in the election race this time, could that finally change? Challenges range from a #MeToo campaign to an "invisible" barrier to the top job.

France's former justice minister Christiane Taubira on Saturday launched her bid to unify the floundering French left and challenge President Emmanuel Macron in April presidential elections, but she faces a slew of competing candidates reluctant to cede the limelight.

"I'm committing myself here before you because I share your aspiration for another kind of government," Taubira told supporters in Lyon at the official launch of her campaign.

PARIS (AP) — Two French politicians kicked off their presidential campaigns Sunday, seeking to become France’s first female leader in next year’s spring election.

The far-right National Rally party’s Marine Le Pen and Paris’ Socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, both launched their presidential platforms in widely expected moves.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo threw her hat in the ring for France's 2022 presidential election on Sunday in Rouen. Her announcement brought an end to months of speculation that she would seek the Socialist nomination – and to years of assurances from Hidalgo herself that Paris City Hall wouldn't serve as a springboard for the country's top job.

The city of Paris has been fined 90,000 euros for an unusual infraction: It appointed too many positions in the government.

In 2018, 11 women and five men became senior officials. That meant 69% of the appointments were women — in violation of a rule that dictated at least 40% of government positions should go to people of each gender.

Marlène Schiappa, Minister of State for Gender Equality and the Fight against Discrimination in France, attended the 25th year Regional Review Meeting of the Beijing Platform for Action for the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Region. She highlighted why this meeting is key for advancing the gender equality agenda and the priorities for the Generation Equality Forum in 2020, a global gathering for gender equality, convened by UN Women and co-chaired by France and Mexico.

The first time a man stopped Marlène Schiappa and said something obscene, she was 14 years old and walking down a street in Paris’ northern 19th arrondissement. Shocked, she rushed home to her apartment and told her family. They were unsurprised. “They just told me, ‘Oh, that’s normal. It’s always like that,’” says Schiappa, who has served as France’s Minister for Gender Equality since May 2017. When it happened again, she didn’t bring it up.

Simone Veil's concentration camp number - 78651 - was displayed on giant screens along the crowd-thronged route her cortège took to the Panthéon on Sunday, where she is to be interred among iconic figures from French politics, culture, society, and history.

Thousands watched as her coffin, draped in the Tricolore, and that of her husband, Antoine, were taken into the crypt of the Panthéon, carried along a blue carpet, chosen to symbolise her love for the European Union.