PARIS, March 8 (Xinhua) -- To mark International Women's Day, the French government has unveiled a task force to monitor the gender gap in the workplace and promote professional equality, said Marlene Schiappa, secretary of state for gender equality on Thursday.

"We are the first European country to create this task force (whose) aim is to test, innovate, to analyze everything in real time by the World Economic Forum and by independent researchers who can guide us in our public policies," Schiappa told RTL radio.

The private-public task force is in partnership with the World Economic Forum, and co-chaired by Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, Shiappa and two figures from the business world, according to the secretary of state.

Schiappa said the task force would publish annual results of its evaluation, "with the hope of seeing a real difference over three years."

On the eve of International Women's Day, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe called on companies to close the gender pay gap by 2021. Otherwise, they will face a fine of up to one percent of the firm's wage bill.

Under the government's new rules for better professional equality, businesses which employ more than 50 workers will have to install special software hooked up directly to their payroll systems to monitor unjustified pay gaps.

Official figures showed that men are on average paid nine percent more than women for the same post.