Discrimination, identities and racial boundaries in France

In an attempt to overcome its long lasting colonial history and involvement in slave trading and massive slavery in its Caribbean islands, the French nation building process has intentionally obfuscated its internal ethnic and racial divisions.  The credo of indifference to differences - the French colorblind approach – has led to removing any reference to ethnic or racial origin from policies or laws -- in compliance with the Constitution -- as well as from statistics and more broadly from collective representations. But this official colorblindness does not mean that race and ethnicity are not perceived and used as cognitive categories for a large range of purposes including selections for accessing to jobs, housing and services, neither that they do not serve for the identification and affiliation of a growing number of racial minority members. I will discuss the extent to which immigrants and second generations tend to define themselves by combining various identity markers including national identity, ethnicity and skin color. Belongings and repertoire of identity will be discussed in relation with their family background, social class, educational attainments, and neighborhood of residence. The main argument of the presentation is that experiences of discrimination shape the salience of ethnicity and race for immigrants and second generations in France. The rise of ethnic and racial minorities in France can be explained by the impact of the racialization of post-colonial migrants and their descendents. I will argue that discrimination has a devastating impact on the political strategy of colorblindness and challenge the republican model of equality through uniformity.

Data come from a new survey Trajectories and Origins: a survey on population diversity in France, which is the largest survey ever done in France on immigrants and second generation. Promoted by INED and the French National Statistical Institute (INSEE), the survey gathered information via a long questionnaire administered in face-to-face interviews to 22 000 respondents from 5 specific sub-samples: Immigrants (8300), descendents of Immigrants (8200), French from Overseas departments (700), their descendents (700) and “mainstream population” (3900). The questionnaire covers wide-ranging areas of social experience (education, employment, housing, family formation, language, religion, transnational ties, political participation and citizenship…) and focuses on experiences of discrimination and identity. Findings on religion, employment, neighborhoods and discrimination will be presented to support the thesis of an ongoing process of racialization of the French society and the rise of ethnic and racial minorities.