France presents a new plan to fight racism

It includes a tightening of penalties for discrimination or the visit of students to historical places linked to anti-Semitism

31 Jan. () –

The Government of France has presented a plan with which it intends to fight against racism and anti-Semitism and which includes measures to appease discrimination from the educational stage and to increase the sentences for hate crimes related to intolerance.

The French Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, has presented a package of 80 measures from the Arab World Institute in Paris, where she has detailed that the plan includes measures that affect different sectors such as work, education, justice or sports, as reported by ‘Les Echos’.

One of the most outstanding measures agreed upon after months of consultation between the French Executive and anti-racist associations affects schoolchildren, since each student must participate in a “visit to a historical or commemorative site linked to racism, anti-Semitism or antigypsyism” .

As explained by the Head of Government herself, French youth “are full of certain conspiracy theories”, which is why she has stressed the importance of appeasing certain stereotypes from childhood by carrying out this type of visit.

The anti-racism plan, which has among its intentions “to better support the victims”, will systematize the tests of employment discrimination in companies and will develop tools with digital platforms and ‘influencers’. It will also focus on access to housing to “highlight good practices and denounce bad ones”, according to the aforementioned newspaper.

In relation to Justice, the Government wants to improve the collection and processing of complaints to avoid dismissals without follow-up.

Borne has promised “total firmness in (the) criminal response”, allowing “the issuance of arrest warrants” against people who “divert freedom of expression for racist or anti-Semitic purposes.” “There will be no impunity for hate,” she has assured.

Penalties will also be increased in the case of racist or anti-Semitic expressions “even non-public” for people with public authority or those responsible for a public service mission, added the French Prime Minister.

All in all, the associations that fight against racism and discrimination have welcomed this new plan with caution, even with great suspicion since it is not the first plan of this type presented by an Emmanuel Macron government.

In March 2018, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe presented his, which the associations recognize as “a failure”, the radio station Radio France Internationale (RFI) has reported.

In this sense, the Minister Delegate for Equality between Women and Men, Isabelle Rome, has maintained that she does not want to repeat the mistakes of the past, which is why she has announced that there will be a semi-annual monitoring of the plan.