French Myths of Racial Democracy
By 
I am never sure if systems of racism like the U.S. are worse, what with their own hatred and discrimination, or if systems of racism like Brazil are worse, where everyone just denies that racism exists even though the end result is that white people control everything and cops kill Black people. France is much closer to the latter, a nation that just doesn’t want to admit that colonialism was wrong and that therefore it has a race problem. I recognize this is much more Melissa’s area of expertise than mine. But I did think that this Charlotte Kilpatrick piece in The New Republic was worth highlighting and discussing.
Although accounts of discrimination at the hands of the police are widespread, proving it is an entirely different matter. That is because the French government has explicitly outlawed keeping any statistics on race. This means ethnic minorities can claim mistreatment all they want, but without any statistical evidence their claims fall on deaf ears. It is, in effect, the national policy of France to pretend that racism doesn’t exist within its boundaries.
The law against statistics on race dates to the 1970s and has origins in the Holocaust. Defenders of the law claim the Nazis were able to round up Jews because the French government kept records on faith and ethnicity. Another reason, and perhaps the most deeply rooted, is the French ideal of universalism—the notion that one’s identity as a French citizen transcends race, gender, and religion. In Macron’s words: “‘Many’ doesn’t mean we’re an agglomerate of communities. It means we’re a national community.” This adherence to a singular national identity is defined abstractly by the French motto of “liberté, égalité, fraternité.” All are equal before the law because the law, like society, is color-blind.
This insistence on color-blindness manifests in different forms. Because the national curriculum is established centrally in Paris, it means all students, for example those in the French Caribbean islands who are descendants of enslaved Africans, are taught a shared history of France that begins with les Gaulois and climbs through the centuries of kings and queens before arriving at revolution and world wars. Colonialism and slavery are brushed upon, but unless a teacher at Frantz Fanon high school in Martinique takes precious time to step away from the national curriculum, none of the students will read the works of the Creole political philosopher.
Universalism extends beyond education. Under the auspices of French secularism knows as laïcité, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the right-wing party Rassemblement National and former presidential candidate, proposed a total ban on wearing the Muslim head scarf in public. In public health, it means officials have no way of knowing how health crises affect different communities (during the Covid pandemic, Reuters accumulated data that revealed French Muslims died at a higher rate from the virus than the overall population). Universalism means no records can be kept on discrimination in the workplace, housing, or access to public funds. The French government has no way of knowing if the children of French immigrants are falling behind those of native-born students and therefore has no way of targeting any reforms that might help them catch up.
No wonder there are race riots in that incredibly racist nation. The government literally doesn’t allow statistics to be kept! It’s like Ron DeSantis with a beret!