The government announces, this Monday, January 30, a plan to fight against racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination linked to origin. On the menu: systematize testing on employment discrimination, “develop tools” with digital platforms and influencers, make an “arrest warrant” possible. Every year, 1.2 million people experience discrimination or racist or anti-Semitic attacks in France, according to the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights.
This 2023-2026 plan will be detailed this morning by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and Minister for Equal Opportunities Isabelle Rome, in the presence of ten other ministers, at the Arab World Institute. Several sectors are involved: from education to employment, including justice and sport. A total of 80 measures will be proposed.
“For more than 5 years, we have been fighting all forms of hatred and tracking down all forms of discrimination,” Elisabeth Borne told AFP, adding that this plan should “allow us to better name and better measure” these phenomena, “to better educate and training, to better sanction the authors of unacceptable remarks or acts and finally to always better support the victims”. This file is the result of several months of consultations between the government – fifteen ministers took part in the discussions –, thirty-five associations, representatives of memorial sites, with the support of the Defender of Rights, the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights of Human Rights and the interministerial delegation to the fight against racism, anti-Semitism and anti-LGBT hatred.
History visit, “reinforcement” of teacher training…
Elisabeth Borne – whose father, a Jew, was deported, then ended his life when his daughter was 11 years old – provides in particular in this plan “the organization of a visit of history or memory linked to racism, anti-Semitism or anti-Gypsyism for each pupil during his schooling”. “We rely on the strength of memory to concern young people, from an early age. When we come back from colony of Izieu (of which 44 Jewish children were deported in 1944), we are no longer the same”, explained Isabelle Rome in The ParisianSaturday, January 29.
A “strengthening” of the training of teachers and state civil servants in general (security forces, Pôle emploi reception agents, etc.) is also planned, and must begin “from the beginning of 2023”. 40 million euros will be released for a first wave of training for 731,000 agents this year, according to The Parisian.
Discrimination in employment: systematize “testing”
Among its flagship measures, the plan also plans to “systematize testing on discrimination in employment”, in different sectors, private and public, in consultation with trade unions and employers’ organizations and associations. Testing consists of sending two identical CVs for the same job offer with the only differences, in particular, the origin of the candidate. In a “graduated logic”, if the bad practices persist, the government does not exclude sanctions and to resort to the practice of “name and shame”, publishing the names of the not very virtuous companies.
“The possibility” of issuing an “arrest warrant”
The executive wishes to include in the law “the possibility” of issuing an “arrest warrant” in the event of “racist or anti-Semitic convictions”, “dispute of crimes against humanity” or “apology for crimes against humanity or war crimes”. This could allow the execution of sentences “when the convicted perpetrators think of escaping it by fleeing abroad”.
According to figures from the Ministry of the Interior, the number of racist crimes or offenses increased by 13% between 2019 and 2021. That year, “7,721 cases of a racist, anti-Semitic or xenophobic nature were the subject of of a legal action”. In total “1,382 convictions (have been) pronounced for racist, anti-Semitic or xenophobic acts or committed with this aggravating circumstance”.
The executive also intends to create aggravated penalties in the event of “non-public offenses of a racist or anti-Semitic nature committed in the exercise of their function by persons holding public authority or charged with a public service mission”.
Securing the filing of complaints
As with victims of sexual violence, the government wants to secure the filing of a complaint. The police are invited to better collect and process them, via “partial anonymization” or thanks to “an evaluation grid”. “With the law enforcement software, there will be a sheet to ask the right questions to the victims, to better characterize the offense”, she still announced in The Parisian.
This plan, which will be monitored every six months, is the result of extensive consultation. In terms of the budget, each ministry concerned has made commitments, but the overall envelope has not been communicated. In order to “promote digital citizenship”, the plan plans to involve “platforms and influencers, in a collaborative work to develop tools aimed at improving the behavior of Internet users”.
The majority of the measures do not involve legislative provisions, but if necessary, they will be registered “as the opportunities of the texts”, indicates the government. In March 2018, Édouard Philippe presented a previous plan which focused in particular on the fight against hateful content online. He already planned to strengthen the training of “all staff” of education. Finally, in April 2021, the government set up a major online citizen consultation on the fight against discrimination.