The purpose of this article is to examine whether legal culture has an influence on the implementation of EC law in member states by means of one case study; the failure of the French legal community to recognise and apply a prohibition against indirect as well as direct discrimination, which is well established in EC legislation and case law. It is suggested that legal cultural factors may have some role to play. The focus of French legal culture on the importance of legal certainty has contributed to an emphasis on a formal concept of equality within the law, to which the concept of indirect discrimination is not suited. The paradoxical role of the French judge, who is given very little power in theory and who is therefore able to take the inevitable policy decisions behind the cloak of judicial anonymity, means that she is able to avoid the obligation placed on her by EC law to implement a prohibition on indirect sex discrimination.