France’s Anti-Racism Strategy Falls Short On Addressing Institutional Racism

France’s Anti-Racism Strategy Falls Short:

The 2023-2026 National Plan Combating Racism, Antisemitism, and Discrimination Linked to Origin in France has generated both optimism and pessimism. The initiative aims to enhance history education, but opponents say it fails to address institutional racism from the country’s colonial past. The plan’s success is questioned by its lack of focused actions to remedy Black historical injustices.

Systemic prejudices that have disproportionately afflicted Black people throughout history are not acknowledged or addressed. The approach may prolong Black inequality in France by not examining racism’s history.

Silent Echoes On Systemic Ethnic Profiling:

France’s Anti-Racism Action Plan’s silence on police racial profiling is controversial. The Council of Europe’s European Commission against Racism and Intolerance has found “little progress” in tackling racial profiling, notably identification checks, indicating Black community concern.

The absence of straightforward actions to address this ongoing issue is troubling. Black people have been disproportionately harmed by discrimination, and the government’s goal to end racism lacks a coherent strategy to fight systematic racial profiling in law enforcement.

Trust, Funding, And Unanswered Questions:

While the proposal provides procedures to address underreported hate crimes, problems remain about restoring confidence among minoritized populations, notably Black people, who routinely face police violence. Uncertainty about funding the plan’s provisions makes its execution more difficult.

Trust is crucial, particularly for Black people who have endured social prejudice. Without a transparent and accountable trust-building strategy, the plan risks seeming cosmetic rather than substantial in removing institutional racism.

In the following parts, we will examine the plan’s historical teaching style, the repercussions of silence on systematic ethnic profiling, and trust and financial issues. These factors are essential to understanding France’s anti-racism campaign and its effects on Black people.

Institutional Racism And The Need For Comprehensive Data:

France’s National Plan Combating Racism was met with cautious optimism, although worries remain regarding its approach to institutional racism, notably in the Black community. The strategy recognizes the need for more robust discrimination measures but does not commit to disaggregated equality statistics. This vagueness casts doubt on the government’s focused initiatives.

Understanding institutional racism’s complexities is essential to fighting it. The approach risks overlooking the intricacies of prejudice suffered by diverse racial and ethnic groups, particularly Black people, by not explicitly committing to gathering disaggregated data. The effectiveness of government initiatives is dubious without a complete knowledge of these processes.

In December 2022, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination stressed the necessity of such data for evidence-based policies. This data might help the Black community identify their unique issues and develop targeted solutions to combat institutional racism.

Unpacking Challenges In Hate Crime Reporting And Community Trust:

The French Anti-Racism Action Plan recognizes hate crime underreporting and suggests complaint options. The initiative fails to reestablish confidence in minoritized groups, notably Black neighborhoods, who routinely face police violence.

Hate crimes and distrust of reporting processes disadvantage Black people. Rebuilding trust involves proactive engagement with impacted groups and addressing the core reasons for mistrust. Without such activities, the agenda risks seeming shallow and detached from Black reality.

Additional ambiguity arises from the plan’s lack of funding for these actions. An effective anti-racism policy requires enough finance. Financial obligations are opaque, raising concerns about the government’s commitment to implementing its anti-racism strategy for Black people.

International Frameworks And France’s Role In Combating Racism:

France’s Anti-Racism Action Plan does not include the European Commission’s first plan, which member states were supposed to execute by December 2022. This absence casts doubt on France’s adherence to international racist guidelines.

The European Commission underlined the necessity of disaggregated equality statistics and goals that address structural racism, including its history. France’s anti-racism initiative lacks this global focus. France risks undermining its efforts by not following international principles to combat racism, which is worldwide.

International frameworks allow the French Black community to fight racism more holistically. By adopting these concepts, France would demonstrate its commitment to racial fairness both domestically and globally.

Read Also: The Tragic Death Of Nahel: Unveiling The Role Of French Racism In Police Violence

Evaluating Progress In Historical Teaching: Unraveling The Complexity:

The National Plan Combating Racism aims to improve school history education, but assessing its success is difficult. While raising historical understanding is desirable, concerns remain about how success will be evaluated and if the Black community will be affected.

Historical lessons sometimes promote prejudices. Thus, a rigorous review system is needed to guarantee that the curriculum reform does not encourage stereotypes or belittle Black life. A thorough evaluation plan, including instructor, student, and community input, is needed to evaluate this anti-racism method.

The inclusivity of historical narratives is crucial to progress evaluation. For Black people, knowing history means acknowledging and correcting past injustices. The plan’s success is critical to reframing historical lessons to dismantle assumptions and prejudices about the Black experience.

Navigating The Silence On Systemic Ethnic Profiling: Implications For The Black Community:

The Anti-Racism Action Plan lacks tangible initiatives to combat French police systematic racial profiling, which has severe consequences for the Black population. For years, systemic ethnic profiling has marginalized and mistreated Black people during identification checks.

The plan’s quiet reinforces Black people’s susceptibility to discrimination, slowing racial equality. Systemic racial profiling demands deliberate law enforcement change to guarantee Black people are not disproportionately targeted.

Beyond policy limitations, this silence affects Black people who suffer racial profiling every day. It perpetuates systematic prejudice by reinforcing mistrust and alienation. Lack of precise address in the strategy risks sustaining the existing quo and hurting Black community interactions with police enforcement.

Transparent Funding: A Crucial Element In Building Trust:

The Anti-Racism Action Plan provides ways to combat underreported hate crimes, but funding is unclear, particularly for Black people. Any anti-racism plan needs enough money and transparency to create confidence among vulnerable populations.

Anti-racism projects are vulnerable to fiscal restrictions and seem insincere without a defined financing strategy. For Black people, financing transparency shows the government’s commitment to action. The lack of a financial plan may doubt the measures’ practicality.

Building trust entails admitting previous mistakes and committing to fixing them. This method requires transparent financing. It lets Blacks and other oppressed people evaluate resource distribution and hold the government responsible for its promises. Without this openness, the Anti-Racism Action Plan risks being seen as well-intentioned but ineffective in changing the Black community.

On January 30, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne launched the 2023-2026. While this new action plan on racism is welcome, it leaves huge gaps.

For instance, the government aims to improve historical teaching and memorialization in school curricula. The plan however fails to tackle institutional racism deeply rooted in France’s colonial past.

Borne also says she wants “better measuring” of discrimination in categories like employment, but the plan doesn’t commit to the collection of disaggregated equality data needed for targeted governmental measures tackling institutional racism. The lack of such data was raised by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in December 2022

Crucially, the plan is silent on ending well-documented systemic ethnic profiling practices by French police, including in the context of identity checks. In June 2022, the Council of Europe’s European Commission against Racism and Intolerance’s released its sixth report on France, highlighting “little progress” on curtailing the use of ethnic profiling by law enforcement officers.  

The plan intends to introduce complaints mechanisms aimed at tackling massive underreporting of hate crimes to the police. Yet it doesn’t explain how to rebuild trust among minoritized communities who experience such attacks in the very institutions that target them, such as the police. The plan also neglects to outline how its measures will be funded.

The strategy also doesn’t reference the European Commission’s first anti racism action plan, which European Union member states were supposed to implement by December 2022. Common guidance stressed the importance of collecting disaggregated equality data to provide for evidence-based policymaking and setting objectives that tackle structural racism, including its historical roots. This is missing from France’s new plan.

If France really wants to set out a strategy to combat racism, the government needs to go deeper and look at reforming the state institutions and processes that institutionalize racial biases and discrimination in ways that harm people and their rights.