Edit of March 27, 2024 at 11:30 a.m.: The article has been updated with the proposed law on hair discrimination presented to the National Assembly on March 27.
A far-fetched law? On the contrary. This Wednesday, March 27, MP Olivier Serva presents a proposed law on hair discrimination. Because the world of work does not always move in the direction of equality. When it is frizzy, in particular, hair exposes its owners to a whole bunch of comments and clichés.
To the point that some employers do not hesitate to discriminate on the basis of haircut. Note that this discrimination mainly concerns so-called “racialized” people: “In France […], non-white people are aware of the discrimination that weighs on their hair. They style their hair according to their professional career,” explained journalist and author Rokhaya Diallo in our lines, in April 2023. A study conducted in 2023 by Dove Crown Studies shows that in the United States, a quarter of black women believe they have already been failed at a job interview because of their haircut. Johan Zenou, social law lawyer at the Paris bar, speaks of the emergence of this discrimination as a recent trend, imported from the United States. He observes that in the eyes of many employers, “these hairstyles give the impression of negligence”.
An evolution of sensitivities
Manifestations of racism and discrimination in the world of work are not new, but these hair stories are contemporary. For Johan Zenou, if the debates around this discrimination are relatively recent, it is because “a few decades ago, we did not encounter this type of situation. The usual discrimination was more focused on origin, sexual orientation, physical appearance and even weight. The notion of hair discrimination was really able to emerge thanks to the jurisprudence of the Aboubakar Toure affair. »
This case dates back to 2022. A steward, Aboubakar Toure, won his case in cassation (after two failures in first and second instance) facing his employer Air France who prohibited him from working with dreadlocks. Beyond this major case law, Johan Zenou sees a before and after #MeToo: “In this context, individual and fundamental rights are at the center of concerns. It is in the logic of things that the legislator ended up tackling this hair discrimination with this bill. »
A crucial bill
While waiting for the law to pass, those potentially discriminated against cannot all afford to take employers to court as the Air France steward did. For the moment, in this type of conflict, the judge makes assessments in concreto – case by case – with the jurisprudence of Aboubakar Toure as a reference and safeguard: “The voices are timid because people do not do not necessarily dare to go to the industrial tribunal,” explains Johan Zenou. “The procedures are as long as they are expensive. And the thing is so difficult to characterize that it is impossible to be certain of the outcome of such a dispute. But it is important that litigants raise the subject, because they participate in its jurisprudence and its legal conclusion,” he continues. This text, if passed, could thus much better protect potentially discriminated against people and allow those who wish to wear dreadlocks, or whatever cut they wish to sport in a professional environment. As it is, they unfortunately have to take the fall too often.