Was the City of Paris Fined for Hiring Too Many Women?

Sometimes doing too good a job has repercussions, as the city government of Paris found out after getting fined for its hiring practices. Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s mission to hire more women in senior positions in the city government was perhaps deemed too successful when the French Ministry of Public Affairs slapped a nearly $110,000 fine on the city.

The fine was imposed on the grounds that the city government had broken national rules on gender parity in its 2018 staffing. The rules under which the city was fined required that...