PARIS, 24 November 2004 — An official report presented to the French government yesterday paints a damning picture of racial discrimination in the workplace and recommends a series of measures including the mandatory introduction of anonymous CVs.
According to the report, young people of Arab and African origin are up to five times more likely to be unemployed than the rest of the French population, while their chances of even achieving an interview are severely reduced as a result of their name and skin color.
In education the number of Arabs and Africans gaining access to top flight university courses and the elite “grandes ecoles” is decreasing, while problems at primary and secondary level mean that schools are “incapable of ensuring basic literacy among non French-speaking immigrants.”
“For reasons linked to our history and which are the result of policies conducted over half a century, the principle of equal opportunity rings hollow in the ears of millions,” the report says.
“It may well be inscribed on the pedestal of the republic and the marble of our constitution, but for many it is just that — a principle — and in no way a reality. Socially relegated and geographically concentrated, these people are the ones that equal opportunities forgot.”
Drawn up by a committee headed by the former president of the insurance giant Axa Claude Bebear, the study argues that it is not just bad morals but also bad economics to deprive France of a huge number of often well-qualified workers. “The situation we are in is doubly absurd. Companies are ignoring a considerable human resource, and young people — many with degrees — are excluded from our collective project,” it says.
Quoting recent academic studies it says that young people from so-called “sensitive areas” — the high-immigration council estates that surround most French towns and cities — are “between three and five times more likely to be hit by unemployment than others.”
An investigation conducted in Paris revealed that a young man of European appearance and name was granted 75 interviews when he sent out his resume, while a person with exactly the same qualifications but of North African origin was given just 14.
Unemployment among graduates of immigrant origin is abnormally high, the report says. The rate is five percent for people of French origin, 7.2 percent for foreigners from inside the European Union and 18 percent for foreigners from outside the EU.
One of the biggest obstacles to any attempt to tackle the problem is France’s refusal to draw up official statistics based on racial origin, on the grounds that this is an infringement of the principle of equality for all, the report’s authors found.
Large companies were being asked to practice non-discrimination but had no means of discovering where the problem lay. “Businesses have no idea of the number of minority members in the work force, nor the type of jobs they hold nor their level of education,” the report says.
