France Fights Racism by Outlawing ‘Race’
France Fights Racism by Outlawing ‘Race’
In a move aimed at undermining the bogus foundation of racist ideology, France’s National Assembly has decided to drop the word “race” from the country’s laws.
In a vote on Thursday night, supported by the ruling Socialist Party, legislators adopted a bill to ban a term that its drafters said had no scientific basis, but which could be seen as giving judicial legitimacy to racist ideologues.
From now on, the word “racial”, as well as “race”, will be dropped from relevant articles of the French penal code, or replaced by the word “ethnic.”
Skeptics in the Assembly and beyond suggested the measure was mainly symbolic and was unlikely to contribute much to the fight against a growing phenomenon of racism in the country.
A government advisory body reported in March that intolerance was on the rise in France, with a 23 percent rise in reported racist acts in 2012.
“You don’t change reality by changing words,” according to Lionel Tardy of the opposition Union for a Popular Movement, the U.M.P.
According to one anonymous comment to Le Monde, “We should also ban the word ‘disease’ and we would suddenly all be healthy.”
However, another reader countered, “There’s no connection. Diseases exist, human races don’t.”
French and English share the same word - “race” - to distinguish between ethnic groups. But in France, where it also refers to breeds of domesticated animals, it carries an additional negative connotation that is linked to the country’s history.
“For many Frenchmen, the very term race sends a shiver running down their spines,” according to Erik Bleich, a Middlebury College political scientist, writing for the Brookings Institution.
“It tends to recall the atrocities of Nazi Germany and the complicity of France’s Vichy regime in deporting Jews to concentration camps,” he said.
France has a number of tough anti-racism laws, including a ban on Holocaust denial.
But, Mr. Bleich noted, “Unlike the United States, Britain, or even the Netherlands, France maintains a ‘color-blind’ model of public policy.”
As a consequence, France targets virtually no policies directly at racial or ethnic groups as a means of combating discrimination, he wrote.
The bill’s Left Front sponsors, who used the minority alliance’s parliamentary time to present the motion, want the ban on “race” extended to the 1958 French Constitution. Article One guarantees equality before the law for all citizens, regardless of “origin, race or religion.”
President François Hollande pledged to remove the word from the Constitution in a speech he gave during his election campaign last year in which he said, “There is only one race, and one family, the human family.”
France’s diversity was part of its identity he said, but “there is no room in the Republic for race.”
His government has since promised to make the word change as part of a constitutional reform but has backed away from a pledge to do so as early as July this year. One complication is that France is signatory to a number of international agreements that include the word “race.”
Some critics suggest that banning the word is a step backward in the fight against racism.
Alana Lentin and Valerie Amiraux, academics writing in The Guardian, cautioned that, “Not talking about races does not lead naturally to the demise of ‘race thinking.’”
“Amending the French Constitution, rather than being an anti-racist stance, contributes to concealing the centrality of race to the past and present of modern Europe,” they wrote.
In a move aimed at undermining the bogus foundation of racist ideology, France’s National Assembly has decided to drop the word “race” from the country’s laws.
In a vote on Thursday night, supported by the ruling Socialist Party, legislators adopted a bill to ban a term that its drafters said had no scientific basis, but which could be seen as giving judicial legitimacy to racist ideologues.
From now on, the word “racial”, as well as “race”, will be dropped from relevant articles of the French penal code, or replaced by the word “ethnic.”
Skeptics in the Assembly and beyond suggested the measure was mainly symbolic and was unlikely to contribute much to the fight against a growing phenomenon of racism in the country.
A government advisory body reported in March that intolerance was on the rise in France, with a 23 percent rise in reported racist acts in 2012.
“You don’t change reality by changing words,” according to Lionel Tardy of the opposition Union for a Popular Movement, the U.M.P.
According to one anonymous comment to Le Monde, “We should also ban the word ‘disease’ and we would suddenly all be healthy.”
However, another reader countered, “There’s no connection. Diseases exist, human races don’t.”
French and English share the same word - “race” - to distinguish between ethnic groups. But in France, where it also refers to breeds of domesticated animals, it carries an additional negative connotation that is linked to the country’s history.
“For many Frenchmen, the very term race sends a shiver running down their spines,” according to Erik Bleich, a Middlebury College political scientist, writing for the Brookings Institution.
“It tends to recall the atrocities of Nazi Germany and the complicity of France’s Vichy regime in deporting Jews to concentration camps,” he said.
France has a number of tough anti-racism laws, including a ban on Holocaust denial.
But, Mr. Bleich noted, “Unlike the United States, Britain, or even the Netherlands, France maintains a ‘color-blind’ model of public policy.”
As a consequence, France targets virtually no policies directly at racial or ethnic groups as a means of combating discrimination, he wrote.
The bill’s Left Front sponsors, who used the minority alliance’s parliamentary time to present the motion, want the ban on “race” extended to the 1958 French Constitution. Article One guarantees equality before the law for all citizens, regardless of “origin, race or religion.”
President François Hollande pledged to remove the word from the Constitution in a speech he gave during his election campaign last year in which he said, “There is only one race, and one family, the human family.”
France’s diversity was part of its identity he said, but “there is no room in the Republic for race.”
His government has since promised to make the word change as part of a constitutional reform but has backed away from a pledge to do so as early as July this year. One complication is that France is signatory to a number of international agreements that include the word “race.”
Some critics suggest that banning the word is a step backward in the fight against racism.
Alana Lentin and Valerie Amiraux, academics writing in The Guardian, cautioned that, “Not talking about races does not lead naturally to the demise of ‘race thinking.’”
“Amending the French Constitution, rather than being an anti-racist stance, contributes to concealing the centrality of race to the past and present of modern Europe,” they wrote.