PARIS (AP) — For many French voters of diverse backgrounds, last Sunday Parliamentary Election Results Rather than a victory for xenophobia, there was a sense of relief in what seemed to be an acceptance of the country’s ethnic diversity. Far-right forces.
“It was a moment of joy, like seeing light at the end of the tunnel,” Roben Bensimon said of the vote, which she celebrated with thousands of others who rallied against the far-right at Paris’ Place de la Republique on Sunday, surrounding a giant patchwork French flag bearing the words “France is the fabric of immigrants.”
“But the fight is not over,” said Bensimon, a 27-year-old Black woman who works in the communications industry. “We must continue to fight the racism we face every day, which has become more pronounced in recent weeks.”
It is thought to be on the verge of winning a majority in parliament, The anti-immigration national rally ultimately came in third. A coalition of centrists and leftists won Sunday’s vote, with a three-way race in which candidates withdrew from the runoff in favor of a challenger seen as best positioned to defeat the far-right.
But civil society groups and concerned citizens say the campaign has exposed racist hate speech and occasional violence that is unlikely to disappear with the new parliament in place.
Nasserah Unges, 61, a French-Algerian woman, said she was first subjected to abuse because of her origins during the election campaign. During an argument the day after the first round of the June election, she said, neighbours overturned her trash cans, yelled obscenities and spat on her.
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“I’m scared. I’m really scared. It’s an emotion I’ve never felt before,” Hunges said, fighting back tears.
She filed a police report the next day but says she is afraid to leave the home where she has lived for 37 years with her five children and her French-Beninese husband in Chakriz, a quiet town north of Paris.
In France, as part of its doctrine of color-blind universalism, people are not counted by race or religion, making it difficult to use statistics to quantify race and ethnicity as factors in society.
It is unclear, for example, whether more foreign-born voters than expected turned out to vote on Sunday, but turnout was generally high, and polling agencies do not track voting patterns by ethnic groups.
However, human rights commissions have reported a significant increase in complaints about racist and anti-Semitic acts. France’s National Advisory Committee for Human Rights reported a 32% increase in racist incidents in 2023, an “unprecedented” surge in anti-Semitic acts; That’s a 284% increase from 2022. The report said the figure is likely an underestimate, given that many victims of racism never file a complaint.
According to France’s national statistics office, one million people said they were victims of racism at least once last year.
Neither agency provided a breakdown of the race or ethnicity of complainants, but the human rights commission said there was declining tolerance in France towards blacks, Arabs, Roma, Jews and Muslims.
The commission named the Rally National as the main party promoting hate speech but said other parties were also involved, including extremists close to the far-left party Unbow France. Suspected of anti-Semitism.
Renowned French Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld urged voters to choose a far-right party over a left-wing coalition if they had only two options, going so far as to say he feared the Indomitable France party had “anti-Semitic overtones.”
For Dominique Sopo, director of the civil society group SOS Racisme, these figures reflect a particularly tense political situation.
He said the essential message of the National Rally, which has steadily grown in support over the past decade, is that “French people will be better off if we somehow strike against immigrants and their children, whether symbolically or legally.”
His group recently filed a complaint after residents in an upscale neighborhood in western Paris reported receiving anonymous leaflets reading “Stop the blacks.”
France’s diverse population includes new immigrants and people with generations of foreign roots, such as those from former French colonies in Africa. A 2022 survey found that about a third of French people under the age of 60 have immigrant ancestryHowever, the exact breakdown is unclear.
Nonna Meyer, a leading figure in the National Rally, said the rise in support for far-right parties in recent years had made people feel more secure. Using xenophobic or anti-Semitic language in public.
“The National Rally defends a ‘France First’ strategy that scapegoats foreigners and immigrants,” Meyer said. “Its success has encouraged racist acts, mainly verbal attacks.”
During the elections, the National Rally made dual nationals a particular target, arguing that they should not be given certain “strategic jobs”. One of its candidates, Roger Sudeau, caused controversy by saying on television that the appointment of French-Moroccan Najat Vallot-Belkacem as education minister from 2014 to 2017 was a “mistake” and “not good for the republic”.
The human rights commission said President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist government has also toughened immigration policies, exacerbating anti-immigrant sentiment in society.
For Jessica Saada, a 31-year-old Tunisian-Jewish woman who works in a children’s hospital in France, racism has never felt more familiar, and she opposes the proposal for a national rally. Muslims banned from wearing headscarves in public places Or ban ritual slaughter, which would deny French Muslims and Jews access to kosher or halal meat.
“It just creates problems and creates more hatred,” she said.
Still, many saw Sunday’s election results as a sign of hope.
Thomas Bertrand, who works in advertising in Paris, said Sunday’s vote was about “individual freedom and tolerance and respect for others.”
Teacher Rachid Sabri said he came to France as a student decades ago and fell in love with the country.
“I started a family with a French woman and a few weeks ago I had a moment of doubt,” he said. “I feel much better now.”
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Associated Press writer Nicolas Garriga in Paris contributed to this report.
