Is there a French Affirmative Action Policy?

Résumé du document

Affirmative action was born in the United States. It was originally designed to favour Black people, whose ancestors where slaves. Then, such programs extended to other underprivileged categories of the population: the disabled, the women, the Latinos. The first to use the phrase "Affirmative action" was President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1961. The core idea was that despite civil rights laws, increasing equality required to promote Black people to upper social categories, for instance through an easier access to university. At that period were also created some jobs reserved to ethnic minorities. Nevertheless, quotas were never used to enforce this policy. The Supreme Court even stated in 2003, that quotas are against the constitution. Indeed, the federal government had to plan pro-minorities laws, without ever using the quotas. The results that came out of this policy in the United States seem to be cheering. Indeed, in 1960, only 13 % of the Black people in the United States belonged to the middle-class. Today, this figure amounts 66 %.

Extraits

[...] This partnership allows pupils from such zones to get a special exam. Instead of sitting for the exam, their exam is based on a press review and an interview. What is more, the number of pupils that can benefit from this program is defined by a quota, which remains off the records. For instance, in students joined the I.E.P. through this exam[4]. Then, they benefit from the same formation as other students. They leave the school with the same diploma in the pocket. [...]

[...] Therefore, the question for the French is: can we use the same means to create and maintain an unfair situation and to crack down on it? Can we use the same meanings as the enemy? The second obstacle to affirmative action policies aimed at ethnical minorities and women is the very idea of discrimination, which involves questioning the French meaning of equality. Accepting to discriminate reversely a category of the population requires acknowledging this category has been discriminated before. Actually, the French republican framework does not acknowledge such differences based upon one's nature. [...]

[...] Affirmative action is therefore a possibility given to some categories to get discriminated reversely, along an individual choice. Affirmative action is basically an individual process. At the contrary, discrimination positive” engulfs a whole social or territorial category. French affirmative action programs are collective processes. Actually, collective affirmative action programs (Z.E.P., zones franches) upon social statistics among a specific area. Thus, the discrimination concerns a group of inhabitants who live in the same neighbourhood whereas American affirmative action policies are aimed directly at individuals. [...]

[...] Thus, it might be interesting to get a closer look at the differences between the American meaning of affirmative action and the French meaning of discrimination positive”, and its stakes about the French and the American views on republicanism. T he French “discrimination positive” is obviously no based on the same criteria as American affirmative action. We will focus in the first part on the genuine meaning of affirmative action in the country where it was first set up, the United States. Then, we will consider the reasons of such differences between French and American affirmative action policies, as regards the idea of republicanism. [...]

[...] The categories concerned by this contract are defined upon criteria concerning their difficulties to find a job. For instance, people unemployed for more than one year and young unskilled workers can benefit from these state-helped contracts. Once again, affirmative action remains indirect: companies are not compelled to employ a percentage of their staff among an underprivileged social category, but the C.E.S. makes it more profitable for them to employ such persons. To some extent, we can say that these policies are affirmative action policies. [...]