The Senate has clearly reduced the scope of a Macronist bill aimed at strengthening the use of “statistical” and “individual” tests in companies and administrations to detect discrimination, particularly in hiring, arousing the ire of left.
The text by MP Marc Ferracci (Renaissance), already adopted by the National Assembly, was also adopted by the Senate but the latter stripped it of most of its measures at the initiative of the right.
The bill allows the creation on an experimental basis of an anti-discrimination service integrated into the Interministerial Delegation for the fight against racism, anti-Semitism and anti-LGBT hatred (Dilcrah).
Its role: to carry out massive individual or statistical “testing” operations to uncover cases of discrimination.
In the case of discrimination in hiring, the “individual test” consists of sending a CV similar to that of a candidate considering themselves discriminated against, by modifying certain elements such as name, gender or age to reveal the existence of discrimination.
Similar, the “statistical test” is based on sending a large number of fictitious applications in order to discover these discriminatory practices.
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But the Senate, with a right and center majority, was not convinced by the system: it thus restricted the role of this new service to statistical tests only, excluding any mention of individual tests, and reduced the scope of the system. only for companies with at least 1,000 employees or for public officials.
A section concerning sanctions for the companies identified was also removed, as was the creation of a “stakeholder committee” responsible for developing “the testing methodology”.
Rapporteur Catherine Di Folco (Les Républicains) criticized the provisions as “imprecise, misunderstood, even frankly counterproductive”.
“This law is only made to apply sanctions, and we have coated it with something very complex.
That’s not our philosophy,” she added.
This position was denounced on the left during sometimes heated debates.
“We cannot say that we are committed to the fight against discrimination and completely empty the law of its substance,” said communist Ian Brossat.
Joint Joint Commission
“You don’t want a text against discrimination, accept it!
You are incapable of assuming a political position,” said socialist Éric Kerrouche to the right.
Deputies and senators will now have the thorny task of trying to agree on a compromise version of this text during a joint joint committee.
This vote came as SOS Racisme unveiled on Tuesday the conclusions of a testing operation carried out in the temporary employment sector, which revealed that 61% of the agencies tested adopted “problematic behavior” when hiring.