Colorblind: The Story of Race in France

Here’s what I learned staying with a host family that I would never have learned on my own: Race, as we understand and talk about in the United States, does not officially exist in France. The government recognizes only humankind, so to speak, and nothing else. Having lived in Annecy for a week now, I’d like to talk about the “colorblind” way of life.

First of all, what do the French do differently that makes them colorblind?

To start, French laws are pretty strongly against racism. While both the United States and France explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, France additionally cracks down on hate speech, penalizing individuals who disparage groups based on ethnicity, religion, or another identity. Meanwhile in the United States, hate speech is unregulated by the government, and the Supreme Court has explicitly maintained that the First Amendment does cover hate speech.

The most interesting thing is that the government maintains its anti-racism stance, but doesn’t concern itself with any racial data on its citizens. Race is generally not allowed to be known in surveys or the like, not even for the national census. In the United States, I can look up the racial demographics of any area, right down to the percentages of my own town. In France, the most anyone can do is estimate within a few million.

As a matter of fact, the word “race” in French is actually sort of taboo. The closest official categorization of race and ethnicity is a set of 12 classifiers used by the police to describe individuals. These classifiers, labeled as “type,” carefully avoid any words that invoke skin color, and are based on regions of the world: European, Indo-Pakistani, Latin-American, African, etc.

Why does France do this?

Part of the reason is historical. Focusing on race can be a frightening callback to Vichy France, where the Nazi-controlled French government played a significant part in deporting Jewish people to concentration camps during the Holocaust. Since the end of World War II, the French state has reversed its position and apologized for the Vichy regime, but continues to be very careful not to make the same mistakes.

However, a lot of the reason is ideological and cultural. France really prides itself on its motto of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” and that includes having a single, indivisible nation. French citizens aren’t white, Asian, Christian, Muslim, or anything else. They’re French.

From talking with my host family, I learned that France has a dichotomous ideological debate that I had never even once been exposed to at home. In fact, the words don’t quite exist in English. This dichotomy is between “communitarianism” and “integration,” which are words you may know but with different definitions. In English, we tend to juxtapose communitarianism and individualism. What’s more important, the needs of the individual or the needs of the community? We also juxtapose integration with segregation, as with the historical Jim Crow laws and the “separate but equal” doctrine.

In France, these two words mean different things. Communitarianism, in the French sense, is about forming subcommunities. In the United States, we can talk about “the Asian American community” or “the Jewish community” and be reasonably sure that we’re referring to a group that shares a certain characteristic, communicates within itself, and has its own discourse. In France, this sort of talk isn’t common, because communitarianism is seen as an obstacle to the more popular integration. To the French, integration is about respect for the national identity by insuring that everyone, including immigrants, gets access to the same opportunities and also follows the same norms.

One example illustrating this difference is Muslim immigrant assimilation. In France, there is debate over whether headscarves, hijabs, and niqabs should be allowed in public spaces or offices because it is an overt expression of religion in an ideally secular state and because it sets Muslims apart socially rather than allowing them to integrate. In the States, there is no real contest because this is covered by our freedom to express our religion.

So what’s the result?

Unfortunately, France’s approach isn’t perfect. I noted in Paris that the city was just as diverse as Boston, but since arriving in Annecy last week and settling down into everyday French life, I’ve seen and experienced racial prejudice, just as I have at home. As examples, people have called into question my place of birth though I clearly present myself as American when first asked, people have been surprised that I don’t speak very much Chinese, and I have been impromptu quizzed on my knowledge of Chinese culture during conversations. All of these are presumptions that I face in the United States as well, because universal attitudes about my appearance place me as Asian first and American second.

I can’t say whether or not France’s approach is good or helpful. There’s no official data on anything regarding people of color. Does the law really stop discrimination? Are people of color at a distinct socioeconomic disadvantage? Do they feel French the way integration claims, or do they feel out of place with no words to describe it?

At the end of the day, I think that is my critique of the French cultural attitude towards racial issues: we don’t have the language to talk about it. Based on my experiences here so far, I would say that racial prejudices still exist in France in some form or another, but without the data or the language to talk about it, it’s impossible to know to what degree it affects life here. Race is such an incendiary topic in the United States, but we know where we stand most of the time. In France, the uncertain silence makes me uneasy.

My host family is mixed race, and while they make racial faux pas that would not pass in the United States, I gather from snippets of French that they are also navigating color in a colorblind world. As an outsider, I wish them luck and continue on my own journey, hoping that my experiences here will better help me to take on racial issues at home.

Ever yours,

Anson

(Hi! I put a lot of research into this post, both from general online reading and just talking with my host family. If you’d like to learn more about France’s non-relationship with race and ethnicity, I’m linking some really great reads here and here.)