Pave: 1-to-20

Le jour 208 de Sarko

In 2005 we had firebombs. This year it was guns. What's next?

Hamid Senni,*
expat French Moroccan, author and
once future door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman in France
-- NOW -- boss of his own market consultancy in Britain
(infra)

Discrimination in France is an open secret (and here and here and here, to link but four reports). It is perseverant and structural. [Very long pause.] All that was to change, chop-chop, following the 2005 riots by the French underclass.

IN FRANCE, DISCRIMINATION ON UPSWING
AS VIOLENCE SMOLDERS

PARIS December 9, 2007 (IHT) - A sociologist at the Sorbonne, Jean-François Amadieu [directeur de l'Observatoire des discriminations, Professeur à l'Université Paris I - Panthéon Sorbonne], was the first to systematically document the problem [scil., widespread discrimination in French job markets]. In 2004, he sent out 500 identical résumés in response to job ads in sales in the greater Paris area. The only difference was that some had Arab-sounding names and others traditional French ones.

Résumés from white male applicants with French names elicited five times more job offers than those that looked like they came from people of North African origin. In 2006, he repeated the exercise:

This time, the ratio was 1-to-20.

M. Amadieu:

You might have expected that the ratio would improve after the riots put this issue onto the political agenda. This does show that 2005 did not make a decisive difference, if anything it did the opposite: It reinforced the stereotypes. ... Even if discrimination has not increased by a factor of four across France, you can safely conclude that there is no progress and probably an overall worsening.

... In a follow-up study on résumé response rates conducted last year throughout France, Amadieu found that discrimination was more pronounced the higher the level of education that was sought by an employer. That has been sending a stark message to the suburbs: Educated youths increasingly consider leaving the country, social workers report.

That, of course, is not news to Pave regulars (and here).

The French social model is neither inefficient nor outdated. It has a great ambition which can be expressed simply: permanently to level up. We must keep it. In a way it's our national genius. It's a necessity.

Then-Jack, Now Ex-Jack,
in annual National Day ("Bastille Day") television interview
PALAIS DE L'ÉLYSÉE, July 14, 2005 (Élysée)

To answer Mr. Senni's question, what's next? [Pause.] It looks to be continuing discrimination and continuing violence.

------------------------------------
* You can read Mr. Senni's story here.

PFFT (What is this?): Moving the needle on egalité 0 | Rayonnement français 0