French politicians target racism

Job seekers are three times less likely than their white neighbors to be offered work if one of their parents is from Algeria, a recent study found.

Waking up to the social and political dangers that such discrimination poses, government leaders have now begun to pay more attention to the problem of integration, though they maintain the French state's traditional and deliberate color-blindness, refusing to gather data on citizens' ethnic or religious backgrounds, which makes it impossible, for example, to know exactly how many Muslims there are in France.

In a recent speech, Chirac said he understood "the feeling of incomprehension, despair, and even revolt" among young people from immigrant families, and he acknowledged the need to "shatter the wall of silence and indifference which surrounds the reality of discrimination."

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin promised this week that his center-right government would make 2004 "the year of a battle for equal opportunity and struggle against discrimination."

A government commission on discrimination is due to report next month, and will propose the creation of an independent authority to promote equal opportunity. But it will reject positive discrimination, says its chairman, Bernard Stasi.

"I am absolutely opposed to positive discrimination," Mr. Stasi says forcefully. "It is contrary to the concept of the French nation. France sees itself as a united country with shared values, and we don't put people in drawers."

Even Mr. Aounit, who has spent his professional life fighting racial discrimination, agrees.

"We have to give more to those who have less, to make equality of opportunity effective," Aounit argues, adding: "I say yes to positive discrimination on social grounds. I say no if it is founded on ethnic or religious criteria.

"The color of your skin should not be an advantage, nor a disadvantage," he says. "Identifying people according to the origins of their parents or their religion means separating them. It is not part of the French tradition."

In two areas, in fact, France has introduced quotas.

Half of all candidates on political- party lists at elections must be women, according to a law introduced by the last government, and companies are obliged to set aside jobs for handicapped people.

But while it is easy to determine who is a woman and who is handicapped, "it would not be possible to share out quotas among the range of different nationalities in France," says Aounit, who himself comes from Algeria. "The idea could not be applied."

Rather, he insists, "We need the political will and determination to apply the laws" against discrimination "in all their severity. We have to break out of the lethargy that has characterized treatment of this issue."

"The solution is not to put quotas in place," he adds. "It is to demand respect for the principle of equality of opportunity based on a person's competence. That takes political will."

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