Maybe it was not the fault of the country. The prize was offered by a sponsor which is a Japanese cosmetic company. I don’t know if the French organizers contacted them, or if that sponsor was proposed by their Japanese contacts and was difficult to refuse.
Back to promoting go among women: pairgo is one such tool. Another idea that I found nice was the WWTC. The idea is that two countries form a team each, but try to pair players of roughly equal strength, for instance 5d vs 5d, 1d vs 2d, 4k vs 5k, etc.