Delayed Reaction

After having lived in Paris for 3 and a half years, the recent riots in the suburbs came as no big suprise. One of the things you notice living here is how invisible people of color are in public spheres: on TV, in the movies, in politics, in hospitals and universities and courtrooms and businesses. France has reached a point where its reality as a multicultural society is not reflected at all in the functions and structures of everday French life.

A few things prevent France from accepting it's diversity and integrating its minorities. One is that diversity is not a really a value here. Unity and uniformity are considered by most French people the key to a successful French society (hence the infamous headscarf law). The ideal is that everyone who lives on French soil must become French in spirit. The problem is that "French" no longer means what it meant 100 years ago; colonialism carries consequences. Furthermore, it's hard to feel French when you can't get a job (no matter how good your qualifications are) because your last name sounds too Arab.

The essential French distaste for multiculturalism is evident in the fact that race isn't recognized here. It is illegal for the government to collect information or gather statistics that indicate people's ethnic or religious origins. The concept is understandable; the law was established after World War II, during which 77,000 French Jews were rounded up and deported because of their religion. The problem, however, lies--as is often the case in France--in the huge gap between principle and reality. The principle--that race and religion don't matter--is beautiful. The reality is that France (or any other country for that matter) cannot be trusted to disregard race and religion, to see only individual merit. The proof is in the results: as much as France talks about America's racist demons, the notion of a black CEO in France is all but unheard of. Race and religion DO matter in France, but they matter in the wrong way. In any case, what good is this principle of not keeping track or referring to race when everyone can tell that a French citizen named Mohammed is not a descendent of Napoleon?

Working at the International Herald Tribune and having to do research for NYT journalists in New York helped me understand how much of a problem this refusal to recognize in any major way the diversity of French society truly is. Journalists unfamiliar with French policy wanted me to find out how many French parliament members were of African or Arab origins, or the percentage of French prison inmates of immigrant backgrounds, etc.. I had to explain that in France these numbers don't exist; the French government prohibits such statistical analysis, so there are only very rough estimations. The noble principle of refusing to recognize difference therefore--and perhaps unwittingly--becomes a way of hiding a very bleak reality: that people of color in France almost categorically form a vast and struggling underclass for whom success is a far-off and unattainable notion.

France has always had a particularly hard time digesting its history. It was only in 1995 that a French president (Jacques Chirac) acknowledged France's share of responsibility in the deportation and extermination of French Jews. And it is only recently that France has recognized the torture and massacre of Algerians during the French-Algerian war. France is slow to evolve and reluctant to criticize itself. It's a proud country, steeped in history, with large open wounds which remain sensitive to the touch. And as much as I do love so many things about France (it's not for nothing that I've stayed here for the last 3 and a half years) it's hard to avoid the feeling that if France spent less time criticizing other countries (namely America)--the French national sport-- and more time confronting its own problems head-on, it would be in far better shape.