Life noir in Paris: Colour code in employment

Rohit Mahajan
Tribune News Service
Paris, August 3
Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!’ Public buildings in Paris scream out the ideals of the French Republic, written into the constitution in 1958.

Constitution can’t guarantee ideals being enforced on the ground, however; ideals can be approximated, never achieved. This fact is evident if you walk the streets, visit the markets and stadiums in Paris for a few days.
Almost invariably, the toughest, most unappealing jobs here are done by French men or women of African heritage — from toilet-cleaning at the Olympics venues to heavy construction work at buildings, from delivering food to supermarkets to low-paying security jobs at the gates of clubs and event venues. It’s as if there’s a colour code at work.
It’s like what we see in India — workers from certain regions and classes are over-represented in low-paying jobs in the construction sectors, for instance.

Why is it so?
Researchers have shown that while the children of immigrants are acquiring better education, they are under-represented in elite French school; two, they are discriminated against in job opportunities.
Mathieu Ichou, a researcher with the French Institute for Demographic Studies, noted in a 2022 report: “Several surveys, data and audit studies backed up that hiring is not favourable to minorities, and they experience discrimination. France is pretty bad regarding this issue, compared to other European countries.”
Those with lower levels of education — which is determined by accident of birth, belief and geography — end up in low-paying jobs such as in the food delivery sector.
Research shows that 45% of households in which the family head has roots in Africa are under the poverty line; the corresponding figure for the overall population is less than 25 per cent.
Homelessness
In the run-up to the Olympics, human rights groups alleged that the homeless of the city, mostly immigrants, had been “encouraged” to leave Paris. The forced migrations from Paris — “social cleansing” — took place in three waves, beginning April 2023.
Many moneyed Parisians left the city of their own will, for they feared massive restrictions and chaos during the Olympics. “They can afford to, because they have money and relatives in the countryside… They have good jobs that allow 40 days of paid leave every year,” said Marie Benoit, a Parisian who said she cannot afford to leave. “Most of those who remain in the need to work all the time, those who don’t have good salaries and good job contracts… And most of them are immigrants, from Africa.”
She agrees that it’s very unfair that poor people from the slums had been forced out of the town for the Olympics. “But that’s how it is always,” she says ruefully.
As it happened in Delhi before the 2010 Commonwealth Games, and in Paris now — the City of Love, the country of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity aren’t necessarily overflowing with love for the underprivileged, the underclass.