Entrenched inequality

The protests and demonstrations all over the world after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis have exposed a festering little hypocrisy in French society. An unauthorised demonstration in front of the main court building in Paris last week, called only on Facebook, attracted, to general surprise, an estimated twenty thousand people at a time when large demonstrations were still banned because of the risk of spreading the coronavirus.  The immediate reason for the protest was the death in police custody four years ago of a young black man called Adama Traoré, the cause of which has never been unequivocally established and which members of his family and community attribute to unwarranted police violence during his arrest. The shocking death on video of George Floyd under the knee of a white police officer has triggered a fresh call for “Justice for Adama” that the demonstrators feel has never been done.

Racism targeting black and brown people in France is as prevalent as it is in many other countries.  What is different in France however is the way it is treated by the state.  A time-honoured tradition, originating in the revolutionary era of the late 18th century, holds that the population of France is not made up of different “communities”, but only of “citizens” with equal rights in a “one and indivisible republic”. A lofty ideal indeed, but one that has been badly battered by subsequent developments in society, particularly since the start of large-scale immigration in the middle of the 20th century.

The problem starts with names and expressions. Whereas in the UK for instance, one hears constant references to BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) communities, in France there is no such designation. Sociologists and statisticians are not allowed to gather any specific information about such “communities” as officially they don’t exist. The furthest the Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, was willing to go in a nicely phrased soundbite the other day was to refer to “a part” of French society that felt that “the republic was not doing enough to protect its children”. Present Macron followed up a day or two later referring to racism in general as “a betrayal of republican universalism”. It follows, understandably therefore, that the term Afro-Américain used widely by French journalists to designate George Floyd is rejected by many. “Why Afro-American?” commented one newspaper reader recently. “Would one call someone from Martinique an Afro-French person?”. The guardians of correct French in the newspaper “Le Monde” have made their views clear in their blog: the term Afro-Américian, they write, is discriminatory in itself. George Floyd was, and should be referred to simply as “un Américain”.

Admirable, one might think, in theory, but in practice a definite problem.

While its known for instance that a higher proportion of people have died from Covid-19 in the northern suburbs of Paris than practically anywhere else in France, this knowledge remains purely anecdotal as no statistics are, nor can be, compiled, about different death rates in different communities and neighbourhoods. The northern Paris suburbs are known to house, in huge and unattractive housing estates, large numbers of people who are described in the media as “people of immigrant origin”. They tend to be poor, often have large families and small apartments, and are more likely to be either unemployed or employed in unskilled jobs as casual and sometimes unregistered labour.  In terms of security and policing, these areas, euphemistically referred to as “difficult neighbourhoods”, are known to harbour thriving hubs of drug trafficking and other underground activities.  Anyone wishing to find out more need go no further than the novels of Olivier Norek, a former police officer turned author and script-writer (Code 93 or Territoires) or films like Les Misérables, by Ladjy Ly, brought up in one of the neighbourhoods he depicts in his film. Its title is deliberately lifted from Victor Hugo’s eponymous 19^th century novel and last year, it won the jury’s special prize at the Cannes Film Festival before being in contention for the best foreign movie at the Oscars.  Another landmark film, “La Haine” by Matthieu Kassovitz is now 25 years old.

Nobody in France, least of all in government, can therefore deny that there is a problem and that it has been around for many years.  The police, who are supposed to maintain “republican order” in these “difficult neighbourhoods” know full well who and what they are up against but have not always displayed sound judgement and great skill in doing their job, to say the least. For their part, youths from black and North African communities constantly complain of being subject to police harassment and sometimes violence. Cases like that of Adama Traoré or that, over ten years ago of two black teenagers who took refuge and were electrocuted in an electricity sub-station after being chased by police, regularly hit the headlines and trigger violent demonstrations. And although there are clearly racist tendencies in the police, as the discovery of a closed group of police officers on Facebook, riddled with racist comments, demonstrates, these exist in all parts of society and police representatives are quick to point out that they are often unfairly singled out for criticism in doing their job.

Despite special efforts to promote children of immigrant origin (anonymous CVs for job seekers, special scholarships at universities and “grandes écoles”etc.) which in any other country would be called positive discrimination, one can’t help feeling that national unity might be better served by officially admitting that specific communities are victims of specific discrimination and trying to get to grips with the detail and extent of the phenomenon. The recent demonstrations, sparked by the killing of George Floyd and calling for a reopening of the case of Adama Traoré, show that anger and indignation in these communities run high. Many other demonstrations have taken place since, all over France, in which the demonstrators are largely black, and posters inscribed with “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice, No Peace” are prominent. The public debate was given a further twist yesterday when the government spokeswoman, Sibeth Ndiaye, black and of Senegalese origin, spoke in favour of breaking a taboo and compiling “ethnic statistics” only to be roundly contradicted by President Macron a few hours later, who said that only specific anti-discrimination measure can be envisaged.

Republican values on citizens and equality strike a chord in the French national psyche and for many French people are one of the big and positive differences between France and countries like the UK and, above all, the US. But France’s numerous and able statisticians would surely be quick to remind politicians that they can’t properly manage what they can’t properly measure.