French town renames itself to sound feminine; here's why

French mayor Bertrand Kern has announced that his town Pantin's name will take on the feminine form for a year to raise awareness about gender equality. The socialist mayor on New Year shared a video on Twitter making the announcement. "Pantin will for a year be called Pantine," he tweeted, adding an 'e' to its name to highlight "equality between women and men" and the struggle to end "violence against women".

The mayor, while making the announcement, said that he hoped that it would be "a wake-up call for this equality between women and men, which is still not perfect -- even if there have been improvements in recent years."

Women are still "less well paid than men", and their place in the public domain is "not always well accepted by men", he noted.

Often times a noun can be made feminine in French by adding an 'e' on the end.

The move seems to be largely symbolic. However, the mayor's office has said there would be no changes made to road signs on the outskirts of town, or in the municipality's official communications.

The town's Twitter account on Wednesday remained unchanged. Although the background banner changed to reading "Pantine: committed to equality".

The announcement triggered a stream of mockery on the social media platform, as many users started suggesting rude feminine alternatives for other towns in France.

A user wrote, "In solidarity with gender equality, this year I want to be called Charlotte and I will go to work in a skirt. It will surely change things...."

Another user wrote, "I worry about the city of Mâcon because Mâcone is not very glorious for its inhabitants..."

Samuel Lafont said, "Bravo @BertrandKern, it's almost as bad as the last PS propaganda video."

In the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index 2022, France ranked 15th worldwide.

With hope, a user wrote, "Nice initiative, hoping it's not just a speech. Think about early childhood: mothers in Pantin are very penalized. The employment rate differential between women and men is 28.4% on Est Ensemble, in particular because of shortcomings in childcare"

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