It aims to prevent bosses from forcing their employees to straighten their hair to hide their afro cuts, or to hide their braids and dreadlocks. The National Assembly voted on Thursday at first reading a bill aimed at penalizing “hair discrimination”, particularly at work, despite reservations about the usefulness of this initiative. The text of the Guadeloupean deputy Olivier Serva (independent Liot group) was adopted by 44 votes to 2. It will then go to the Senate, where its future is uncertain.
“In France, discrimination based on physical appearance is already punished in theory,” agreed MP Serva. “But from theory to reality there is a gulf,” he underlined, pleading to “clarify” a “misunderstood or poorly understood law”.
Olivier Serva spoke of “black women who feel obliged to straighten their hair” before a job interview, “redheaded people, victims of many negative prejudices”, or “bald men”.
A text inspired by the United States
The government took a “benevolent look” at the text, relying on the “wisdom” of the deputies. It has “the merit of highlighting this type of discrimination”, even if the law “already allows us to fight” against it, noted the Minister for Gender Equality Aurore Bergé.
“Black woman from the Republic of Guinea”, “I am here with my braids, my wigs”, described Macronist MP Fanta Berete. “When I was applying for certain jobs, I was told that I had to straighten my hair,” she testified.
The text is inspired by legislation in force in several states of the United States, notably Crown Act enacted in 2019 in California against hair discrimination.
The term “systemic racism” makes the right bristle
The left supported this text. It is a “real, serious and political” problem, which “mainly affects women” and “racialized people”, underlined Insoumise Danièle Obono, denouncing, like the ecologist Sabrina Sebaihi, “systemic racism”.
This last term made the right bristle. In the tumult, LR Xavier Breton denounced a “militant ideology”, “remarks which only aim to fracture our society”. He fought the proposed law, “talkative law”, “a headlong rush” towards a “list of discriminations” at the risk of establishing “a hierarchy”.
On the far right, RN Philippe Schreck called for “not to mock or mock” this proposed law, but questioned it. “Are we taking care of the daily problems of the French”, in a “virtually bankrupt” country? “It would be good to quickly move on to something else,” he demanded.