“Opening the Elite” to black and Arab minorities in France

Inspired by the election of U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled plans to open up France’s political and business elite to black and Arab minorities through a major national push on equal opportunities. Despite being home to one of Europe’s biggest black communities and its largest Arab-Muslim minority, France is still ruled by an overwhelmingly white establishment and unemployment is at its highest in immigrant suburbs. Speaking before the elite Polytechnique science and engineering school outside Paris, Sarkozy warned that promoting diversity is “not an option, but an obligation” to French society as it heads into the 21st-century. “We cannot ignore that our selection process bars whole parts of society from reaching positions of leadership,” Sarkozy said. He announced a raft of measures to get more minorities into France’s elite higher education institutes or “Grandes Écoles”. From next year, children eligible for scholarships, a majority of whom are of immigrant background, will be offered special tuition to compete in the entry exams for the best schools. By 2010, 30 percent of places in the preparatory classes for “Grandes Écoles” should go to scholarship children, compared to the current average ranging between 0.5 to 20 percent.
In politics, all political parties are to commit to a diversity charter and file annual reports on their efforts to promote equal opportunities. On the business front, Sarkozy said a new “diversity” award would reward best practice in fighting discrimination and that the state would consider withholding public contracts from companies that fail to act. French businessman Yazid Sabeg, who is of Algerian origin, was named Government Commissioner for Equal Opportunities and Diversity and will draw up a more detailed action plan by March.