Gender equality: progress, or a work in progress ?

The French National Professional Gender Equality Index was established in 2019, in order to help monitor progress in gender equality in the world of work and business. It requires companies with over 50 employees to measure their gender pay gap and related data, disclose the results, and describe the practices and policies put in place internally to level the playing field.

The national average for the index in 2024 was 88%, confirming the positive trend that has seen the index rise 4 percentage points since 2020.

Nonetheless, many gender prejudices and clichés still persist in the world of work, especially in sectors traditionally reserved for men, such as manual professions.

The second edition of our TV programme L'Émission addresses the theme of gender equality in the world of work, and offers enlightening testimonies with the power to help deconstruct gender stereotypes over the years to come.

Our guests shed some light on how to make progress in the right direction with a strong message for women in 2025: dare to approach trades or responsibilities previously reserved for men. However, to move forward, men also have an important role to play in opening up more opportunities to women, and recognising the benefits of having mixed teams.

We unravel the issues at Viaposte and with our guests!

Tatiana Brillant, a woman at the service of the National Police Intervention Force RAID: negotiation without compromise

The first word goes to a guest whose career path demands all of our respect. A lawyer by training, nothing suggested that Tatiana Brillant would be destined to join the ranks of the special intervention force RAID. It was by the happiest of coincidences that, in reading a press article on the “Human Bomb“ case, a kindergarten hostage crisis in Neuilly-sur-Seine, her interest in the profession of negotiator was piqued.

After passing her officer’s exam, and gaining three years of experience in a police station, she tried her luck at joining RAID. Not quite having the 5 years of service required to apply, she had the audacity to write a letter to the RAID Commander saying, “If I joined the police, it was only to get into RAID, so you have to let me take the tests.”  Her request was finally accepted with a flippant “Come and take the tests if you want, it’ll give us something to laugh at!” The tone was set.

“During the tests, every day I heard they wouldn’t take on a woman anyway, because there was no way I’d pass,” commented Tatiana Brillant, former RAID negotiator and guest of the Viaposte programme episode on gender equality.

But fate decided otherwise, following the departure of the candidate selected in her place, Tatiana was contacted. In finally joining RAID, she learnt that she had come in first place in the selection tests.

Though her experience in the elite unit was sometimes punctuated by sexist remarks, such as “Now we’ll be able to open a crèche”, and probing attitudes of her 98% male colleagues, Tatiana told us that “Everyone is in the same boat, we all have to prove ourselves! There’s no different scale for men and women in RAID!”

For Tatiana, the combination of different backgrounds and the nourishing of professional diversity are important assets, “The more you have the chance to have a group made up of men and women, and what’s more from different backgrounds, the more you are able to put the best foot forward in a crisis management situation, whatever it is.”

“Women have brought with them this possibility of creating a choice of different profiles, and to temper certain situations, especially when confronted with individuals used to playing power games.”

After 7 years of loyal service, Tatiana found out she was pregnant, a fact she tried to hide at first, for fear of what they would say at work. However, when she finally announced it, the reaction was incredibly positive, as it was with the arrival of her second child a few years later. Helped by her professional and personal entourage, Tatiana quickly understood that she could balance her work with her role of mother, provided that she dared to!

As a woman, a mother, an officer, and a negotiator, in a predominantly male world, she was able to take advantage of unique talents to lead a remarkable career of 13 years in the unit, the longest RAID career for a woman officer. Today, she is one of the few women to have followed this career path in the unit, and denounces a form of “self-censorship that women may have in not daring to apply for a job post because they think they will not be accepted for it.”

Laetitia Calvo, Maintenance Technician at Viaposte: a vocation, and a family affair !

Our next guest was Laetitia, a young Maintenance Technician at Viaposte, since June 2024. However, at only 22 years old, her vocation was not born yesterday.

At a very early age, she discovered a passion for electrical repairs in lending a hand to her grandfather!

It was therefore natural that she turned to professional studies in Electricity and Connected Environments (Métiers de l'Électricité et de ses Environnements Connectés, MELEC). However, she had to develop a thick skin, as Laetitia explained to us, “I was the only girl in my class. One of my teachers used to call me ‘The Girl’, or use my surname, while he addressed my peer by their first names.”

“I sometimes felt sidelined during my studies. But I was able to count on the support of a few good friends, especially in group work!”

On entering the world of work, Laetitia quickly came up against gender stereotypes and prejudices, “I had an issue with a company that refused me for an internship because they said they were afraid I’d accuse them of harassment, or claim money from them. But that made me stronger. It motivated me even more!

With the help of her relatives, who had always encouraged her, and helped her find various internships, she gained confidence in herself and in her abilities.

On joining Viaposte, she immediately felt comfortable and in her element. “I was very well received in the teams. What I like is that colleagues don’t hesitate to give you a hand, when the work gets a bit physical, we help each other out, we try to find solutions!”

Are you, like Laetitia, ready to take on the challenge of industrial maintenance at Viaposte ? Check out our job offers !

Anne-Laure Charpenet, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Viaposte: a phenomenon from an early age

Anne-Laure Charpenet, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Viaposte, gave us her reflections on gender stereotypes.

“This phenomenon affects all women, in all and any sector. There may have been advances, but inequalities still persist in 2025. In school, in career orientation, there are still too many stereotypes, certainly some unconscious, so you have to be careful!”

Very keen to reduce these disparities, “At Viaposte, we measure our results against the Professional Gender Equality Index. We’ve had very good results, between 89 and 94%, depending on the department or division.”

Beyond these results, 29.64% of Viaposte’s workforce was made up by women in 2024, “It’s an excellent result given the sector in which we work,” adds Anne-Laure Charpenet.

In tangible terms, Viaposte acts on 4 main points to reduce inequalities:

• Recruitment: helping women to integrate and welcoming them into the company.
• Remuneration: agreements with trade unions to guarantee the equity of remuneration at Viaposte.
• Careers: helping women grow in their careers at Viaposte, through a mentoring programme, with a team of mentors and mentees, made up of both female and male talents, allowing women to ask questions and ask for additional support from neutral figures, who are not their direct managers.
• Communication: speaking and communicating about parity, educating and raising the awareness of people both internally and externally, such as through the programme L’Émission.

Garry Mallier, Head of Logistics in Cavaillon, in the south of France: observer of the evolution of diversity in logistics

With a 20-year career in Viaposte behind him, from a sorting agent, working at various Viaposte facilities, through to a multi-site manager, Gary Mallier gave us his testimony on the evolution of diversity in the supply chain sector and at the company.

“I have progressively seen more women in these professions! When I arrived in Chelles, in 2007, there was only one female top manager, among six male top managers, and only one female team manager, among eighteen male team managers. When I left there in 2017, there were three women executives, and six women team managers, quite a change !

“On a purely operational level, particularly among sorting agents, we are almost at 50/50! Customs have evolved as well. And what is put in place internally is also for that!“

Garry also noted that the mechanization of logistics warehouses has removed the excuse of needing a man’s strength, “we’ve got rid of the arduousness of some of the work, and this somewhat reduces the old gender differences in the profession.

Nevertheless, he has experienced certain persistent individual attitudes to women’s in the workplace, such as a young temporary worker who refused to work under the supervision of a female manager, and so was sent home on his very first day at the company. However, prejudices sometimes come from where you might least expect them, as one woman would say at the end of meal breaks, “Come on ladies, time to clean up!”

“We have witnessed a growing collective awareness. With the responsibilities and the positioning of Viaposte, the topic is well known and recognized. There is no question about it, we look at the skills of the individual, and not whether that person is a woman or a man. Before, I didn’t really consider the topic of diversity. Today, it’s an important topic for the company, and, as a manager, I have to pay attention to it. So, I’ve become more sensitive to it.”

In spite of this, Garry lamented that to a recent call for applications for a logistics operations manager only two women applied, out of sixty candidacies. “It’s a shame. We need diversity, as good comes from everywhere, and from all ages! It’s diversity that generates success!”

Garry went on to insist on the key role of support and opportunities:

• A Technical and Safety Manager was supported into a more technical position thanks to targeted mentoring.
• A partnership has been launched with EPF Montpellier, a 60% female engineering school, to attract more women into logistics.

A last word from Anne-Laure Charpenet

What are the main areas for improvement ?

“There’s still a way to go. This is a subject you have to embrace and never let go, because sliding backwards is always possible too,” commented Anne-Laure Charpenet.

An area for improvement that remains to be developed is the place of women managers. “If there are too few, this gives out two negative signals. First of all, there’s pay equality. With less remunerative positions for women, it’s difficult to reach pay equality. Then, it stops women from aspiring, because they don’t other women growing in their careers.”

According to Anne-Laure Charpenet, the levers of action deployed within Viaposte include the following, “During our managerial reviews organized every year at each site, there are two important figures to consider: the percentage of women on site, and the percentage of women in managerial positions. If we see too big a gap, we take corrective actions.

“Then, we are engaged in the Hero’s Race in May and June, and we will make donations to a professional association that promotes a mix of men and women in the logistics sector. This association will help us enrich our action plan from an external perspective.”

The Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Viaposte finally concludes with a strong message that is almost a mantra:

To find out more on the topic of gender equality in work, take a look at our replay, and comment and share !