DEAUVILLE, FRANCE — “It’s the 21st century,” said Arielle Dombasle, the French actress and singer who had written a song for the three-day women’s forum that ended here this weekend. “Our mothers and grandmothers have fought for so many things. It’s time to enjoy those things and take power.”

The 880 or so high-powered women gathered for the fifth year in this chic beach resort — the “Davos for Women” — spurned talk of taking over the world (although, impatient with the eternal queues for the female facilities, they did appropriate the men’s toilets).

But there was a sense in dozens of sessions that the economic crisis, and the soul-searching it has sparked, represent an opportunity for a new female leap forward. While women are often hit hardest by recession, the argument went, they bring much to the table in terms of rethinking economic leadership, investment behavior and entrepreneurship.

Even men agreed. “We are in a moment in time when we have to make not just important short-term decisions but also shape the long-term,” said Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of the carmaker Renault and one of the 120 men invited to the forum. “Women are extremely important for this.”

 

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