Law Commons^™

French constitutional law, which embraces equality as a founding principle, prohibits the state from collecting data about race, ethnicity or religion, and French culture is deeply averse to the legitimacy of racial identity. France is thus, in American parlance, officially “color-blind.” But in France as in the United States, the principle of color-blindness masks a deeply color-conscious society, in which race and ethnicity are closely linked to discrimination and disadvantage. French law, and French-incorporated European law, requires the state to prohibit discrimination, including indirect discrimination. But in the absence of racial identity data, it is difficult for the state to …