SOME ARE LESS EQUAL THAN OTHERS:

Blacks in France fight equality bind (John Tagliabue, 9/21/05, The New York Times)

For decades many African countries have sent their young to work or study in France, a nation that boasts of itself as the cradle of human rights and a bulwark against racism, and where the road from Harlem to Paris was wide, welcoming artists like the singer Josephine Baker, the musician Sidney Bechet and the writer James Baldwin.

But French insistence on the equality of man, a fundamental legacy of the Revolution, leaves the African immigrants in a bind, by perpetuating the fiction of a society without minorities, according to black critics of the French system.

In France, it is not permitted for a census to list people by race. Nor is it permitted to ask about race on a job application. Hence while blacks are thought to number about 1.5 million, of a total population of 59 million, no one knows the exact number, which some experts estimate to be far higher.

What the French government sees as a color-blind neutrality, many blacks see as an obstacle to their social progress. Their alienation was only heightened this summer when fires in several crowded apartment buildings in Paris left 48 blacks, mainly children, dead. In neighborhoods like Chateau Rouge that anger spills out.

"It could be a coincidence," said Cheickh, bitterly, "but one question the French have to answer is, of 48 people who died, why were 48 black?"

Corporate offices are virtually bare of blacks, and blacks are in a political vacuum. No black person sits in the National Assembly or in a regional Parliament and only a smattering are found in city councils. While the European Union finances programs for minorities, none of them are in France, for its refusal to recognize minorities. "Such programs are not wanted for ideological reasons," said Dogad Dogoui, 41, a native of Ivory Coast and a business and political consultant. Adding with a note of sarcasm, "France is the only European country without minorities." So today, blacks are not much on the French agenda.

After the recent fires, the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, proposed enacting a program of positive discrimination in hiring and requiring anonymous résumés for job applications. But the remainder of the cabinet, including the minister for equal opportunity, Azouz Begag, rejected the idea, saying it offended the principle of equality.

"The French like to say, blacks are a social problem, not racial," said Gaston Kelman, 52, a native of Cameroon who has written widely on France's blacks. "So our institutions have no means to overcome it." Until recently, virtually all blacks were on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Gradually, however, a younger generation of blacks is starting businesses and giving birth to a black middle class. They feel the discrimination in French society and are beginning to resist.

Memo to Europe's ethnic populations: now is not the best time to register your ethnicity with the state and make the round-ups easier.

MORE:
Having a third baby really pays off for French women (Colin Randall, September 21, 2005, LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH)

Middle-class French women will be offered cash incentives to have a third child amid growing concerns that professional couples are having too few children. [...]

Given France's egalitarian ideals, the notion of creating perks to attract professional mothers did not go down well with the socialist opposition.

Although class or racial issues have been sidestepped, there is a suspicion on the left that the ruling center-right regards the existing system as favoring those with little work ethic who live on handouts.

"The poor current level of compensation appeals only to those on lower incomes," said UNAF President Hubert Brin.

"This is not just a French problem but affects Europe in general. In Germany, as many as 40 percent of professional women turn their backs on maternity.

"Ask a professional woman these days to make a definitive choice between having a career and having babies, and she'll choose the former."

Demographic trends in Muslim and non-Muslim communities are rarely mentioned in public debate. France has the largest Muslim community in Europe, estimated at up to 10 percent of its 60 million population.

"France is facing the problem that dare not speak its name," columnist Barbara Amiel wrote in 2004 for the London Telegraph.

"Though French law prohibits the census from any reference to ethnic background or religion, many demographers estimate that as much as 20 [to] 30 percent of the population under 25 is now Muslim. ...

"Given current birthrates, it is not impossible that in 25 years France will have a Muslim majority. The consequences are dynamic: Is it possible that secular France might become an Islamic state?" Ms. Amiel wrote.

A 2004 study on European population trends sponsored by the Pew Research Center said the demographic shift affects all of Europe, which receives 1 million legal immigrants, most from Muslim nations, each year.

"At the same time, Muslims already living on the continent are having three times as many children as their white, European neighbors," the Pew report said.

Meanwhile, America becomes ever less like Europe, Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood (LOUISE STORY, 9/20/05, NY Times)

Cynthia Liu is precisely the kind of high achiever Yale wants: smart (1510 SAT), disciplined (4.0 grade point average), competitive (finalist in Texas oratory competition), musical (pianist), athletic (runner) and altruistic (hospital volunteer). And at the start of her sophomore year at Yale, Ms. Liu is full of ambition, planning to go to law school.

So will she join the long tradition of famous Ivy League graduates? Not likely. By the time she is 30, this accomplished 19-year-old expects to be a stay-at-home mom.

"My mother's always told me you can't be the best career woman and the best mother at the same time," Ms. Liu said matter-of-factly. "You always have to choose one over the other."

At Yale and other top colleges, women are being groomed to take their place in an ever more diverse professional elite. It is almost taken for granted that, just as they make up half the students at these institutions, they will move into leadership roles on an equal basis with their male classmates.

There is just one problem with this scenario: many of these women say that is not what they want.

Many women at the nation's most elite colleges say they have already decided that they will put aside their careers in favor of raising children. Though some of these students are not planning to have children and some hope to have a family and work full time, many others, like Ms. Liu, say they will happily play a traditional female role, with motherhood their main commitment.

A bit of advice: if you want to stay home and play a traditional female role, marry a doctor.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 21, 2005 6:33 AM