The health crisis, an amplifier of racist and xenophobic acts?
In any case, this is what the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) tends to demonstrate.
In an annual report made public on Thursday, the independent body reviews the state of racism in France over the past year.
And according to him, the health crisis has not killed xenophobic acts.
Quite the contrary.
While the number of racist acts fell by 26% overall between 2019 and 2020 according to data from the Central Territorial Intelligence Service of the Ministry of the Interior (SCRT), anti-Muslim incidents have experienced a sharp increase.
On the order of + 52% in one year.
The CNCDH notably points to a context "favoring the stigmatization of Muslims", with the denunciation of Islamist separatism or the fallout from the assassination of Samuel Paty on October 16, 2020.
Discrimination from the schoolyard
Another major trend observed in the report: that of anti-Asian racism. "We received a hundred complaints in the year 2020 alone. This is three times more than usual," says Laetitia Chhiv, president of the Association of Young Chinese of France (AJCF). Throughout the year, hateful tweets and verbal and even physical attacks have multiplied against Asians. Due in particular to the origin of Covid-19, discovered for the first time in China.
Part of the community has been ostracized from society, with some consumers avoiding Asian businesses during the pandemic for fear of the virus.
“It even happened that children in playgrounds were stigmatized.
Comrades told them not to come to school so as not to bring back the virus, ”laments the activist.
Read also Coronavirus: anti-Chinese racism even in the playgrounds
According to the CNCDH, this situation would result in part by the search for ideal culprits to explain this pandemic.
"The designation of scapegoats, made responsible for all ills, has focused in particular on people suspected of transmitting the disease, including those of Asian origin", we can read in the report.
“During pandemics, there has always been more or less some form of social or ethnic stigma,” explains Simeng Wang, researcher at the CNRS.
In these moments of crisis, we have a special relationship with others.
"
Awareness of the phenomenon
However, the health crisis would only reveal an already existing discrimination. “There is an ambient anti-Asian racism in society, the Covid has not invented anything. We see it at the moment with the controversy around Antoine Griezmann and Ousmane Dembélé, whose video dates from 2019, ”denounces the president of the AJCF. "This form of discrimination has deep cultural origins, we would have to go back to before 1900 to find its source," said Simeng Wang.
This health crisis has, however, made it possible to become aware of the phenomenon of anti-Asian racism. "The Covid has made it possible, in part of the community, to think about discrimination and to react to it", notes the sociologist. “Until now, there was a kind of impunity around this form of racism. In a way, it would be less serious than others, but things are starting to change, ”adds Laetitia Chhiv. On May 26, four students were sentenced by the Paris court for a series of hateful tweets against the Asian community. But hopes that anti-Asian racism will fade away with the epidemic remains slim. “We continue to receive many complaints, deplores Laetitia Chhiv. What is needed is a complete change of vision on China. "