A survey carried out by the French representative council of black associations has found that almost all black people in France say they have experienced discrimination based on their skin colour.
In a survey of black and mixed race people living in mainland France, nine out of ten respondents – 91 percent – said they that they personally experience racial discrimination in their daily lives.
Patrick Lozès, the president of the Cran, the black advocacy group that ordered the survey, was to present the results to lawmakers at the National Assembly on Wednesday, just weeks after the government introduced its multi-year anti-racism action plan.
The Cran published a first version of this survey in 2007, where it found that 56 percent of black people reported experiencing racial discrimination.
The 2023 survey, carried out by the Ipsos polling agency, as reported by the Parisien newspaper, appears to show that things have gotten worse: 25 percent of respondents said they experience racial discrimination often, 44 percent once in a while, and 22 percent rarely; only nine percent reported never experiencing racism.
What the Cran calls “daily racism” is most often experienced on the street or in public transit.
A third of respondents reported experiencing discrimination at work, and 14 percent at school or university.
They survey also shows that black people are more often stopped by police than the rest of the population – a problem of racial profiling that has been the target of lawsuits and criticism from rights groups.
Half of respondents (49 percent) said they have been stopped and asked for identification by police, whereas official statistics put the number at 23 percent of the entire population.
