French Parliament Halts Discrimination Against Algerians In Employment Sector

The two chambers of the French Parliament have withdrawn proposed amendments to the articles of the equality and citizenship law tabled before the legislative body for discussion and ratification, by putting on an equal footing the Algerian employee or worker in the labor market with the European one residing on French soil.

The parliamentary move thus puts an end to reported practices of blatant discrimination against Algerians vying for job positions in the French public service.

These legislative amendments were meant to make the Algerian employee, for example, assuming a position or responsibility, to be meted out the same treatment as any other European employee holding the same post.

In a related development, the Ministry of Labor in France made public this week the results of a large testing operation on discrimination in hiring in large companies, depending on the origin of the candidates’ names. 

It appeared that the original names from the “Maghreb” countries are very clearly discriminated against compared with the names of “hexagonal” origin.

When applying for a job offer, it is better to call oneself Francois or Charlotte than Mohamed or Djamila … We suspected so much discrimination, especially because of the consonance of the name are ancient. But a very extensive “testing” carried out between April and July 2016 by the firm ISM Corum, on behalf of the Ministry of Labor, gives a “scientific” value to this impression. The results of this investigation, quite damning, have just been published by La Dares (Statistical Service of the French Ministry of Labor).

It should be noted that, according to “La Dares”, the gaps are virtually unchanged for candidates at the “employee” and “manager” levels. Similarly, discrimination is almost the same, whether male or female candidates.

It should also be noted that not all French companies are far from failing on the matter. The survey shows that 12 of the 40 companies were mainly guilty of discrimination against Maghrebian candidates mostly Algerians. In these enterprises, the rate of positive responses made to the “Maghrebians” was lower by 15 to 35 points than that concerning those of “hexagonal” origin.