Olivier Serva, an independent National Assembly
deputy for the French overseas territory of Guadeloupe and the bill’s sponsor,
said it would penalise any workplace discrimination based on “hair style,
colour, length or texture”.
Similar laws exist in around 20 US states which
have identified hair discrimination as an expression of racism.
In Britain, the Equality and Human Rights
Commission has issued guidelines against hair discrimination in schools.
Serva, who is black, said women “of African
descent” were often encouraged before job interviews to change their style
of hair.
– ‘Target of discrimination’ –
The deputy, who also included discrimination
suffered by blondes and redheads in his proposal, points to an American study
stating that a quarter of black women polled said they had been ruled out for
jobs because of how they wore their hair at the job interview.
Such statistics are hard to come by in France,
which bans the compilation of personal data that mention a person’s race or
ethnic background on the basis of the French Republic’s
“universalist” principles.
The draft law does not, in fact, contain the term
“racism”, noted Daphne Bedinade, a social anthropologist, saying the
omission was problematic.
“To make this only about hair discrimination
is to mask the problems of people whose hair makes them a target of
discrimination, mostly black women,” she told Le Monde daily.
While statistics are difficult to come by,
high-profile people have faced online harassment because of their hairstyle.
In the political sphere they include former
government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye, and Audrey Pulvar, a deputy mayor of
Paris, whose afro look has attracted much negative comment online.
The bill’s critics say it is unnecessary, as
discrimination based on looks is already banned by law.
“There is no legal void here,” said Eric
Rocheblave, a lawyer specialising in labour law.
Calling any future law “symbolic”,
Rocheblave said it would not be of much practical help when it came to proving
discrimination in court.
Kenza Bel Kenadil, an influencer and
self-proclaimed “activist against hair discrimination”, said a law
would still send an important message.
“It would tell everybody that the law protects
you in every way and lets you style your hair any way you want,” she said.
The influencer, who has 256,000 followers on
Instagram, said she herself had been “forced” to tie her hair in a
bun when she was working as a receptionist.
Her employers were “very clear”, she
said. “It was, either you go home and fix your hair or you don’t come here
to work”.
