France is to enact sweeping changes to its sexual equality laws on a par with granting women the vote and legalising abortion, reports The Daily Telegraph.
The proposals will include "ABC of gender equality" lessons for children as young as six, the threat of imposing compulsory equal pay for men and women in the same jobs and tougher laws on domestic violence.
France's women's rights minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said: "This will become the third generation of equality legislation after women were given the right to vote in 1944 and abortion was legalised in 1975."
She made the comments on the day France called its first cross-ministry meeting on women's' rights in 12 years.
New draft laws outlined yesterday will allow the courts to accelerate restraining orders and trials for violent male partners and provide females considered under threat of violence with free emergency mobile phones to alert police.
Employers will be inspected to ensure men and women receive equal pay, and could be forced by law to raise a women's salary or lower a man's to ensure fairness in large companies.
And starting next year, children will be given lessons in sexual equality while at primary school from the age of six to 11. The aim, said Miss Vallaud-Belkacem, was to "deconstruct stereotypes" deeply ingrained in French society.
France trumpets being the guardian of human rights, translated in French as "droits de l'homme" (men's rights).
But the country currently languishes in 57th place in the World Economic Forum's 2012 gender equality report – well behind Britain, in 18th place, but also Venezuela and the Kyrgiz Republic. It ranks almost last overall on the wage equality index – 129th out of 135 countries.
Read more of this report from The Daily Telegraph.