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AA debates in France
15/11/2005 16:13 - (SA)
Paris - Yazid Sabeg sees himself as the exception that proves the rule of France's social inequality.
The son of an Algerian Muslim longshoreman who emigrated to France in the 1950s, Sabeg worked his way up the social ladder to become the president of a leading information technology company, and the confidant of a former prime minister.
France, he says, needs a radical remedy to social woes which have been laid bare by the rioting currently sweeping squalid housing projects: affirmative action.
"We need to work on representation, to create a society that's more in the image of what France is today," said Sabeg. "There's no diversity, not in media, not in the economic world, not in public life. It's all white and Christian."
"We need mechanisms that assure equality."
It's a message increasingly embraced by figures at the highest levels of government, including French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, but also vilified by many as a dangerous American idea that creates social distortions.
Others, such as Ferdinand Richard, who runs a centre for training aspiring musicians in a poor, largely immigrant part of Marseille, says young people in housing projects should be encouraged to "snap out" of a mindset of apathy and powerlessness.
"The word people never use in all of this affair is autonomy," said Richard. "There are those who haven't seen anybody in the family work since their grandfather. That makes young people lose the habit of effort."
On Monday, French president, Jacques Chirac, announced measures to train 50&nbps;000 youths by 2007. It was his first national address since the start of the riots nearly three weeks ago.
He told companies and unions to encourage diversity and support employment for youths from tough neighborhoods, but said France would not impose hiring or educational quotas.
The biggest champion of affirmative action is Sarkozy, who has become the main magnet of immigrant anger after calling suburban delinquents "scum."
Sarkozy does not support quotas but he is outspokenly in favor of active recruitment in underprivileged immigrant areas, and scholarships for the brightest minority youths.
Sabeg said positive discrimination is needed to counteract another type of discrimination: the cronyism of the nation's elite educational institutions whose graduates fill the nation's board rooms and bureaucracies.
However, affirmative action meets with resistance even among young people from immigrant backgrounds.
"I'm not asking for positive discrimination," said Malika, 24. "I'm just asking for the same chances."
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