He pauses and weighs each word. Julien Denormandie, Minister of the City and Housing, and man of the first circle in the close guard of Emmanuel Macron, received us Friday evening, on the eve of the Parisian demonstration against racism and police violence.
His notes included a message of appeasement and three concrete measures intended to combat discrimination in employment, housing and television. Always with the same method: persuasion, rather than coercion.
Who do you think is the most legitimate to demonstrate to the police that some people call racists or anti-racists?
JULIEN DENORMANDIE. It is absurd to oppose the demonstrations against each other. In each, there is a lot of legitimate emotion. France, the institutions, the police are not racist. In their daily missions, the security forces defend the Republic and its values. But in any society there are individuals who are affected by this disease of the soul which is racism. And we must fight with total determination against any racist act whatsoever, wherever it is and whoever it is who does it. Racism is intolerable, discrimination is unbearable.
Beyond words, how will you concretely translate this struggle?
Many things against discrimination have already been done, but there is a need to accelerate and amplify. We must fight discrimination on a daily basis. And first of all those that affect access to the labor market. We will thus relaunch a new testing with companies. The first had allowed, at the start of the year, to pin 7 companies out of the first 40 tested, and this from the job interview. I believe very much in the “name and shame” technique, which consists in making public the names of companies responsible for discrimination, because it succeeds in moving lines and consciences. Those of companies that have been tested like the others.
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Testing takes place at the time of hiring. But after ?
The follow-up to the testing is accompanied by training sessions during which discrimination in career development is taken into account. It is a strong attention that we pay with Marlène Schiappa.
Day-to-day discrimination also occurs in housing…
Effectively. I am going to sign a decree which obliges all real estate agencies and professional associations to undergo anti-discrimination training before each renewal of their professional card, that is to say every three years. This question of training is essential. There is no fatality. The latest study by SOS Racisme has shown that the differences in behavior between agencies are very strong.
But when it is the owner or the lessor who has discriminatory behavior?
When you face discrimination, it is the law that comes into play. At the end of the ends, when neither training nor awareness is sufficient, the rule of law sanctions.
You emphasize mentalities. Are there other areas in which the government will act?
Yes, my personal conviction is that we must act in the audiovisual sector. The diversity in our TV channels has nothing to do with society yet. The CSA publishes every year a report on the representation of the diversity of French society on TV and radio. The results speak for themselves. We absolutely must create the conditions to remedy this. We must strengthen the evaluation capacities of the CSA with finer indicators and a follow-up, chain by chain, made public in order to encourage the media to make stronger commitments in matters of diversity. With Franck Riester, Minister of Culture and with the deputies, this project was opened as part of the audiovisual bill.
The institutional reform, examined last year, planned to remove the word race from the preamble to the Constitution. Do you support it?
Yes, this word must definitely be removed from the Constitution. This is something that the National Assembly had already taken up. It would be a symbolically very strong sign.
Is it the current context that forces you to speed up your anti-discrimination policy?
We have been working on it for many months but it is true that we have chosen to accelerate it because it is important, in the moment that crosses the country, to show that no form of discrimination has its place.
Could these demonstrations be the start of a political crisis?
We must not confuse the social difficulties that the French are going through, the discrimination of which some are victims and the instrumentalization that others seek to organize. It is true that in difficult times, many seek leaders and contribute to this conflict which can lead to acts of discrimination. Look at the words of the National Rally which keeps trying to oppose each other.
Government spokesperson Sibeth Ndiaye wants to open the debate on ethnic statistics. Do you support it?
The legitimate question asked is: "How can we improve diversity within a company, an administration, if we cannot measure it?" " I think the best track is statistics based on where you live. It's less stigmatizing and it's very effective.