French society is sick, page-45

the french like to believe they operate on the basis that liberte, egalite et fraternite is all. They appear oblivious to their colonial past and the damage they wrought and the way that plays out in modern france .

policies are based on assimilation (the denial of race) and as a result there are no official demographic statistics relating to race. The trouble with that is that racism exists at a social and systemic level and has done for a long time.

it’s tricky when you want to believe as a country that your founding principles are all, when those same principles are regularly found to be absent in the daily lives of so many.

being colour and race blind at an official level does not overcome the discrimination and racial profiling that exists. Worse - it allows people to believe that as a society france is colour blind. So people can sit in their little cafes, talk about politics and philosophy and pontificate as much as they like but that doesn’t make their opinions any more than that - opinions. These people are mirroring the official narrative

In some ways the riots now are the consequence of French policies. Ignoring, not looking, pretending, - that does not change reality.