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Women workers in France urged to down tools at 11.44

Women across France were encouraged to leave work at 11.44am on November 3rd as part of a campaign highlighting the salary gap between male and female staff.

Published: 3 November 2017 12:24 CET
Women workers in France urged to down tools at 11.44
Woman demonstrating at equal pay protest in 2016. Photo: The Local
French feminist collective Les Glorieuses have re-launched their campaign to denounce the wage disparity between the sexes. 
 
According to the latest figures from data agency Eurostat (based on 2015 salaries), women are effectively working for free for the last 39.7 days of the year as a result of the 15 percent wage disparity. 
 
And the equal rights group is urging women workers in France to take a stand by leaving work at 11.44 on November 3rd.
 
“If there was equal pay in France, women would be able to stop work on Friday November 3rd at 11.44 and earn the same amount (as men) in 2017,” said the equal rights group.
 
And the hashtag #3novembre11h44 was trending in France on Friday. 
 
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But the wage gap doesn't look set to close any time soon. 

In 2016 the group used the latest figures then available (2010) to work out the cut off point and it came on November 7th. 
 
This means the situation has got worse in the intervening five-year period, said Rebecca Amsellem, founder of Les Glorieuses, according to a report in BFM TV.
 
“Last year, our campaign had a strong impact on public opinion, and it felt like people were becoming aware of the inequality,” she added. 
 
The group hopes that this year's campaign will have even more of an impact, raising awareness at a corporate and political level. 
 
So far at least one politician has taken note, with the secretary of state for equality Marlène Schiappa planning to meet the group behind the campaign. 
 
“We want to make concrete progress, something more effective than the current system, which fines companies that do not respect equal pay,” said Amsellem.
 
Ideally the group would like there to be greater transparency over salaries, with companies publishing what they pay their staff. 
 
However they aren't only concerned with equality for women, Les Glorieuses also campaigns for fathers to be entitled to the same leave when their child is born.  

FOOTBALL

Putellas becomes second Spanish footballer in history to win Ballon d’Or

Alexia Putellas of Barcelona and Spain won the women's Ballon d'Or prize on Monday, becoming only the second Spanish-born footballer in history to be considered the best in the world, and claiming a win for Spain after a 61-year wait.

Published: 30 November 2021 09:55 CET
FC Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas poses after being awarded thewomen's Ballon d'Or award.
FC Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas poses after being awarded thewomen's Ballon d'Or award. Photo: FRANCK FIFE / AFP

Putellas is the third winner of the prize, following in the footsteps of Ada Hegerberg, who won the inaugural women’s Ballon d’Or in 2018, and United States World Cup star Megan Rapinoe, winner in 2019.

Putellas captained Barcelona to victory in this year’s Champions League, scoring a penalty in the final as her side hammered Chelsea 4-0 in Gothenburg.

She also won a Spanish league and cup double with Barca, the club she joined as a teenager in 2012, and helped her country qualify for the upcoming Women’s Euro in England.

Her Barcelona and Spain teammate Jennifer Hermoso finished second in the voting, with Sam Kerr of Chelsea and Australia coming in third.

It completes an awards double for Putellas, who in August was named player of the year by European football’s governing body UEFA.

But it’s also a huge win for Spain as it’s the first time in 61 years that a Spanish footballer – male or female – is crowned the world’s best footballer of the year, and only the second time in history a Spaniard wins the Ballon d’Or. 

Former Spanish midfielder Luis Suárez (not the ex Liverpool and Barça player now at Atlético) was the only Spanish-born footballer to win the award in 1960 while at Inter Milan. Argentinian-born Alfredo Di Stefano, the Real Madrid star who took up Spanish citizenship, also won it in 1959.

Who is Alexia Putellas?

Alexia Putellas grew up dreaming of playing for Barcelona and after clinching the treble of league, cup and Champions League last season, her status as a women’s footballing icon was underlined as she claimed the Ballon d’Or on Monday.

Unlike the men’s side, Barca’s women swept the board last term with the 27-year-old, who wears “Alexia” on the back of her shirt, at the forefront, months before Lionel Messi’s emotional departure.

Attacker Putellas, who turns 28 in February, spent her childhood less than an hour’s car journey from the Camp Nou and she made her first trip to the ground from her hometown of Mollet del Valles, for the Barcelona derby on January 6, 2000.

Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas (R) vies with VfL Wolfsburg's German defender Kathrin Hendrich
Putellas plays as a striker for Barça and Spain. GABRIEL BOUYS / POOL / AFP

Exactly 21 years later she became the first woman in the modern era to score in the stadium, against Espanyol. Her name was engraved in the club’s history from that day forward, but her story started much earlier.

She started playing the sport in school, against boys.

“My mum had enough of me coming home with bruises on my legs, so she signed me up at a club so that I stopped playing during break-time,” Putellas said last year.

So, with her parent’s insistence, she joined Sabadell before being signed by Barca’s academy.

“That’s where things got serious… But you couldn’t envisage, with all one’s power, to make a living from football,” she said.

After less than a year with “her” outfit, she moved across town to Espanyol and made her first-team debut in 2010 before losing to Barca in the final of the Copa de la Reina.

She then headed south for a season at Valencia-based club Levante before returning “home” in July 2012, signing for Barcelona just two months after her father’s death.

In her first term there she helped Barca win the league and cup double, winning the award for player of the match in the final of the latter competition.

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