Government Unveils Social Measures to Combat Discrimination in Working-Class Neighborhoods

A vast plan to offer better prospects to the 5 million French people living in working-class neighborhoods. After announcing, this Thursday, October 26, the creation of a fund of 100 million euros intended to finance the reconstruction of cities affected by the summer riots, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, unveiled the social measures of its project for these territories, following an interministerial committee of cities meeting in Chanteloup-les-Vignes (Yvelines), this Friday. Employment, housing, ecology, education… many subjects linked to city policy and aimed at reduce difficulties working-class neighborhoods were discussed during this committee.

Several levers will be used in particular to boost employment in the priority districts of the city policy (QPV). In addition to the creation of a fund endowed with 300 million euros to allow associations to re-mobilize those furthest from the employment announced this Friday, the government must adopt a “ambitious policy to combat discrimination”declared Elisabeth Borne. “It is unacceptable that certain names or certain addresses can condemn people to unemployment”, she added. The head of government therefore announced the deployment “from 2024” of a testing campaign for “fight against discriminatory practices in access to internships and hiring”. Note that this campaign will also target discrimination in access to housing and bank loans.

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A plan to combat discrimination already announced at the start of the year

In reality, this announcement is not new. Already on January 30, during the presentation of her national plan to combat racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination linked to origin, Elisabeth Borne announced that she wanted systematize the use of these testing campaigns to protect employees against discrimination at work. And this, with the aim of “make it known who is respecting the rules, support companies to improve their practices, denounce discriminatory behavior and, where appropriate, agir in justice if an offense is proven”is it written in a press kit detailing the plan.

A few months later – on May 23 – the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, had the opportunity to explain further to the press how the government intends to track large companies in matters of discrimination at work. It is thus planned to “draw lots, each year, a certain number of companies among the largest»in which “teams of academics” will carry out testing operations, declared Olivier Dussopt, who also wants to take advantage of this system to fight against age-related discrimination.

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500 companies tested each year on their discriminatory practices

During the announcements made this Friday, the executive revealed even more about its plan. Thus, the objective would be to aim, ultimately, 500 large companies per year as part of these vast testing campaigns, we can read in a press kit accompanying the presentation of the plan aimed at improving living conditions in the QPV. These operations would be carried out “under the aegis of Dilcrah (the Interministerial Delegation for the fight against racism, anti-Semitism and anti-LGBT hatred, Editor’s note)”as provided by a Law proposition supported by Renaissance deputy Marc Ferracci and which must be examined in the National Assembly by the end of the year.

To effectively combat discrimination at work, the government intends to rely heavily on this piece of legislation. The latter aims more precisely to create a public service responsible for systematizing the practice of testing in companies. Beyond carrying out massive testing campaigns in large companies or public organizations, which would take the form of sending false CVs differing only by a chosen discrimination criterion – such as origin -, this public service would also have mission to help citizens achieve “individual tests”. These would allow employees who consider themselves victims of discrimination to benefit from assistance if they take legal action to have the damage they have suffered recognized.

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And the bad students will just have to behave. The bill wants to allow publication of names companies or communities whose discriminatory behavior has been established. The only way to escape for the organizations concerned: define, through social dialogue or unilaterally, a real plan to combat discrimination. This is not the first time that large companies have been threatened with “name and shame” and several of them have already paid the price. After an operation launched in 2016 in 40 companies with more than 1,000 employees, the discriminatory practices of AccorHotels and Courtepaille have been publicly denounced. As part of another testing campaign carried out between October 2018 and January 2019, seven companies, including Air France, Accord and Renault, were singled out for “presumption of discrimination in hiring”.