In the midst of a debate on racism in the United States after the death of George Floyd and the demonstrations in France, Sibeth Ndiaye, the government spokesperson wants to reopen the debate on ethnic statistics. "The problem of racism in France is not settled," she launched in a column in Le Monde. And to add: "but we can bring it back at the cost of a tireless, economic and social, democratic and republican fight, which must once again become the honor of France. Let us dare to publicly debate certain subjects which were still discussed yesterday and which have now become taboo, without sinking into the usual trials of intent. "
In telling her story, she talks about her experience of "ordinary racism" or more precisely "ordinary racism". With "those who openly distrust you because you are black and those who believe they have overcome all prejudices, but still feed them without knowing it, almost without thinking about it. But this racism, whether explicit or unthinkable, was never validated by society or by French institutions ”.
"I followed with interest all the debates of the 2000s on positive discrimination, on the visibility of minorities, on quotas, on ethnic statistics ... All this was difficult, often ambiguous, sometimes counterproductive, but was of the same concern : do not add racial difficulty to social difficulty, and go beyond racial prejudice by social success. This concern animated the left, but was not indifferent to certain progressive right circles, which promoted, for example, the anonymous CV, "she continues.
A debate "no longer racial, but cultural and identity"
However, this "French civil combat", has, according to her, gradually crumbled. “On the right, the issue of discrimination and its corrosive effects on society has been supplanted by the issue of Islam. This new obsession made the debate no longer racial, but cultural and identity-based. Basically, the rejection of the stranger was no longer due to his skin color, but to his religion. "With the key a" beautiful syllogism ":" Blacks and Arabs are often Muslim, or Islam is not compatible with the Republic ... So blacks and Arabs would not be compatible with the Republic ".
According to her, "caught in the vise, mistreated, denounced, French-style republican universalism has faded from consciousness and appeared incapable of responding to the cultural insecurity of some as to the racial suffering of others. It is this erasure that we are paying for today, and we are paying for it very dearly. If we left the field to extremes, to their concepts, to their vision, then we would act the fragmentation of France in the archipelago. This is not what I hoped for when I became French. This is not why I got involved in politics, ”she adds.
Sibeth Ndiaye says she has "the conviction that we need to rediscover the sense of French universalism. For this universalism to live and prosper, we must not hesitate to name things, to say that a skin color is not neutral, that a name or a first name stigmatizes ”.
According to her, the path that must be taken must be based on the confrontation of memories. "We can do it if we confront our memories by bringing together stories without opposing them: what I learned from colonization, at school, in Senegal, should be able to combine with what I learned in France of decolonization. We can unite the two sides of the table, with the help of our historians, to create a shared narrative allowing to overcome the divisions. "
An explosive debate already revived by Manuel Valls
And then there is what is happening on the ground. “We must also ask ourselves the question of the representativeness of people of color in the public, political, economic and cultural life of our country. We must forcefully return to the tools to combat racial discrimination without confusing them with the means to combat social discrimination. "
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According to her, the debate must be relaunched in a "calm and constructive manner" around ethnic statistics. "We have made universalism the foundation of our laws, but, not being able to measure and look at reality as it is, we let fantasies flourish. There is something there which we must urgently get hold of, because we must not give up our universalist and republican project, under penalty of giving reason to those who divert its meaning and shamelessly exploit its weaknesses ”, concludes- she.
This debate remains delicate, even explosive. Manuel Valls had relaunched the issue of ethnic statistics in 2015, but François Hollande had been much more reluctant. During his presidential campaign, Emmanuel Macron was rather pragmatic in favor of increasing testing, the penal response, and the "name and shame" (name and blame) for companies practicing discrimination in hiring.
