France’s
annual report on racism has revealed that after a four-year downward trend,
the country’s “tolerance index” has shown “a slight progression
towards more tolerance.”
The shift, says the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights
(CNCDH), is rather puzzling, given the context of a country that recently
experienced its deadliest terror attack in several decades.
But according to the report, which was published Thursday by the CNCDH,
a government organization, the overall improvement of France’s levels of
tolerance does not spare certain minorities, who remain a target of entrenched
prejudice and racism.
Muslims, for example, have been subject to higher levels of intolerance
since the January 2015 terror attacks that left 20 people dead — including
three gunmen — in and around Paris. There were more recorded attacks against
Muslims in January 2015, says the report, than in the whole of 2014.
Speaking to VICE News on Friday, a spokesperson for the CNCDH said the
increase could in part be explained by raised levels of public awareness
following the movement of national unity that followed the attacks.
In short, more people are likely to have reported racist incidents
post-Charlie Hebdo — spurred on by the spirit of national unity — than would
have in the past.
According to the CNCDH, the post-Charlie Hebdo demonstrations have had a
somewhat positive effect on France’s overall levels of racism, and have helped
“defuse xenophobic tensions.” Thirty percent of those interviewed for
the survey said they had taken part in one of the many unity marches across
France in the wake of the shootings. A further 35 percent said they were unable
to take part but wished they had.
The report — which puts education at the front line of the fight against
racism — was initially meant to provide an overview of 2014, and interviews for
the survey were carried out in Fall 2014, shortly after Islamic State (IS)
militants killed French hiker Hervé Gourdel in Algeria.
But instead of releasing their findings in early 2015, as planned, CNCDH
researchers decided to test French opinion again in January, so that results
would take into account the public mood in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo
attacks.
The “flash survey” conducted over 10 days in January confirmed
that overall, the tragic events had “strengthened respect and tolerance of
minorities” — not made French people more racist.
Following the attacks, tolerance of people of color went up by 4 points,
and tolerance of Muslims and people of North African descent went up by 1.6
points. Meanwhile, tolerance of Jewish people — a community that was
specifically targeted on January 9, when gunman Amédy Coulibaly held and killed
hostages at a Paris kosher supermarket — went up by 3.7 points.
CNDCH president Christine Lazerges told French weekly Journal du
Dimanche, “In the face of these tragic events, social ties have
strengthened, rather than weakened.”
The paradox of French intolerance
So can tolerance and racist incidents both be on the up? Speaking to
French daily Libération on Thursday, Lazerges explained that France’s
propensity for intolerance could have just reached a “threshold.”
The report also notes, “There is no absolute symmetry between
racist opinions and racist actions,” adding that the country’s general
attitude to racism cannot be confused with racist attacks “which could be
attributed to particularly violent minorities.”
This hint of optimism will perhaps not reassure France’s Jewish
population, which has experienced a surge in anti-Semitic incidents over the
past 12 months. CNCDH president Lazerges told French daily Libération,
“The vast majority of people consider Jews to be just like any other
French people, but there are also prejudices over power, money. The concerns of
the Jewish community – urged by Benjamin Netanyahu to ‘return to Israel’ — are
not completely unfounded.”
A report published in 2015 by the French Jewish Community Protection
Services (SPCJ) claims that anti-Semitic attacks in France more than doubled
between 2013 and 2014. The report also says that 51% of racist attacks carried
out in France in 2014 were against Jews, despite Jews representing less than 1%
of the French population.
Researchers also recorded a peak in anti-Semitic incidents carried out
in the months of June, July, and August, during the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict.
Despite the increase in anti-Semitic incidents, the French Jewish
community is still — on the whole — more tolerated than France’s Muslims.
Forty-five percent of those interviewed by the CNCDH said they had a
negative view of Islam, and four out of 10 people saw not consuming pork or
alcohol as an obstacle to societal integration.
Some of those interviewed said they would like to see France’s prized
tradition of secularism act as a “bulwark” against Islam.
“Secularism is no longer used to resolve conflicts,” said Lazerges,
“but serves as a pretext to reject [cultural] differences.”
The report also notes the worrying rise of anti-Roma sentiment, fueled
by anti-immigrant hostility. The French government’s harsh policy of forced
evictions, says the CNCDH, has encouraged the “institutionalization”
of anti-Roma prejudice.
