France is embroiled in a bitter row over how to resolve its issues surrounding race after Nicolas Sarkozy’s new diversity tsar suggested breaking one of the country’s biggest taboos by legalizing the counting of ethnic minorities.
Unlike in Britain or the US, where people are often asked to tick a box about ethnic origin, in France it is illegal to classify people by ethnicity or to ask census questions on race or origins.
A cornerstone of the secular French republic is that all citizens should be equal and free from distinctions of class, race or religion.
Sarkozy recently went further than any other French president to denounce the hypocrisy of everyday racism and discrimination, which has poisoned that republican ideal. He said the lack of data on ethnic minorities was hampering the ability to measure inequality and deal with it.
Meanwhile, race campaigners describe a society plagued by discrimination, where non-white French citizens with “foreign-sounding” names are routinely discriminated against in education and employment, or targeted by random police searches.
Even state housing authorities have been found guilty of denying apartments to people on the grounds of race.
Yazid Sabeg, a businessman of Algerian-Berber origin appointed by Sarkozy to advise on tackling discrimination, was expected to launch a commission yesterday to examine ways of officially collecting statistics on France’s ethnic make-up for the first time.
But the proposal has created such a political row that it is unclear whether Sarkozy could shelve the idea.
Sabeg was due to hand a report to the president last Friday detailing his recommendations, but it was postponed indefinitely by the Elysee, which blamed presidential “diary commitments.”
Sabeg has said that discrimination in France is so acute that the nation is becoming “an apartheid state.”
He said data collected on minorities would be voluntary and anonymous.
People would not be made to tick a box by human resources departments, but instead in surveys would be asked to define what “community” they felt they belonged to — such as black, white, north African or Asian.
The proposal has sparked outrage among left and right-wing politicians alike along with intellectuals, where the very word “community” is seen as an affront to the republican ideal.
The British approach of multiculturalism is seen as dangerously divisive.
“Our country must not become a mosaic of communities,” said Fadela Amara, the left-wing junior minister for urban affairs.
French history bears heavily on the debate.
The 1978 law that bans collecting ethnic data has roots in France’s shame over collaboration with the Nazis during the second world war, when Jews were marked with yellow stars and sent to death camps.
“No one else should ever wear a yellow star,” Amara said.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including