As a French speaker and a francophile, I can, sadly, disillusion you about gender egalitarianism in France. The French are quite progressive on some ideas, but when it comes to relationships between the sexes, they tend to be curiously retrograde.

I have an American friend who married a French man just a few years ago. The relationship was rocky at first, they almost didn't marry, because they had to clear the air about gender roles and equality. He was a little more reminiscent of an American man from say the 1970s or '80s. Not completely, mind you, but curiously so.

I don't say this to denigrate the French, only to note that gender progress in France has not progressed on the same road as it has in the United States or the UK. A few things are better, some things are worse.

But as I mentioned to Patsy in my own comment, at least the French populace as a whole is absolutely outraged at this judge. And this case is at the very front of outraged public attention in France.