Discrimination in access to employment on grounds of foreign origin in France
A national survey of discrimination based on the testing methodology of the International Labour Office
The Dares and ILO carried out surveys, according to the testing methodology, in several large French cities, on the issues of discriminations in employment. The report emphasizes that “the totality of surveys heretofore conducted has recorded a much greater number of tests manifesting discrimination against test-candidates who present a supposed extra-European origin, than towards those test-candidates who present a supposed European or native origin.” It is added that “during the initial contact, the two candidates were refused at first sight in a third of the cases, the employer declaring most often that the position had already been filled. Next to “immediate refusals,” the most frequent kind of reaction consisted in giving different responses to the two candidates, treating one in a more favourably than the other.” More generally, the report indicated that only 11% of the employers responded equally to the candidates without taking into account their origin or supposed origin. Paying particular attention to the initial contacts between an employer and an applicant, the report emphasises that “the differences in working treatment can hardly be founded only on the last name and first name of the candidates, who are selected from a distance, without the employers even having met them: in this case, arbitrary nature of the discrimination is flagrant.”
