In Anglo-Saxon countries like the United States, and Britain, where I’ll be posted next, the situation is different again. Working moms don’t face the stigma there — but at the same time have much less of the government aid that French women enjoy.

Perhaps my biggest shock in transferring to London was to discover that as a working mother of two I would be paying about €2,000, or $2,900, more in income tax per year. Only for single people, or married couples without children, does the widely held assumption hold true that you pay a lot less tax in Britain than in France.

Child care in London is also more expensive, and those costs don’t necessarily cease at school age: A large variance in quality between state schools means that parents more often turn to private schooling. The debate about school districts does of course exist on both sides of the Channel. But if private schools in France are often Catholic schools with fees that are counted in hundreds, not thousands, of euros, in London you’re sometimes talking about tens of thousands of pounds in education fees before your child even applies to college — or find yourself paying a premium on real estate in the immediate vicinity of decently ranked state schools.

I have another list, a much shorter one, of all the things I won’t miss about France: the overrated coffee, the smell of andouillettes, the “do not walk on the grass” signs in public parks and all the unnecessary traffic congestion due to cars piling into the intersection just as the light turns yellow. There are also the early-morning ticket controls in the Métro that in my experience seem to focus mostly on black and Arab-looking commuters.

But the No. 1 spot on this list is also occupied by something related to being a woman: A deep-seated machismo in everyday interaction that grated with me long before the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case made headlines.

Many French women appear to worry more about being feminine than feminist, and French men often display a form of gallantry predating the 1789 revolution. “Charming,” I thought, when I first arrived 10 years ago and an official in the Foreign Ministry scrambled to open every one of four doors in a very long, narrow corridor. But I soon tired of the unsolicited attention that young men sometimes heap upon women who are walking down the Champs-Élysées in a skirt.

France ranks 46th in the World Economic Forum’s 2010 gender equality report, lagging behind the United States, most of Europe, but also Kazakhstan and Jamaica. Women in France earn on average 26 percent less than men but do two-thirds of the housework.