Agnès Buzyn, candidate (LREM) for mayor of Paris, June 9, 2020. - Nicolo Revelli Beaumont / SIPA for 20 Minutes

Agnès Buzyn, LREM candidate for mayor of Paris, estimated on Sunday that ethnic statistics, "it's infeasible" and "it's more risky than useful", when government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye calls for reopen the debate on this issue.

"In my opinion more risky than useful"

"We have to weigh the risks and the benefits, and if one day we have to do it, we have to do it in an excessively limited field, with all the necessary guarantees, but I think that in practice, it is impractical and my opinion more risky than useful ", judged the former Minister of Health at the microphone of Radio J.

“It forces you to classify people and basically, I cannot imagine that we classify people - a human is a human - and according to a pseudo-ethnic criterion since we know how questionable it is "Lamented Agnès Buzyn, who says she is" viscerally attached to universalism ".

The National Rally also very critical

RN Nicolas Bay MEP was also very critical. “At the National Gathering, we have always been opposed to the idea of ​​ethnic statistics because ultimately, this would lead to an analysis of events, sociology, from an exclusively ethnic or racial perspective, which is nevertheless quite simplistic and even constitutes a regression ”, he denounced on France Inter / FranceinfoTV.

"I warn them, I think they are very reckless because if we go into this, we will do ethnic statistics on recipients of family allowances or social benefits. We are going to do ethnic statistics, as is the case in the United States, on delinquency and crime and that will highlight a number of things, such as the obvious link between immigration and insecurity ", he added.

Reopening the debate "in a peaceful and constructive way" wants the government

Government spokesperson Sibeth Ndiaye suggested reopening "the debate around ethnic statistics in a peaceful and constructive manner" and "forcefully returning to the tools to combat racial discrimination", in a column published by Le Monde on Saturday .

"Because we have made universalism the foundation of our laws, but, not being able to measure and look at reality as it is, we let fantasies flourish", writes Sibeth Ndiaye, herself Franco-Senegalese, who says he had "experienced ordinary racism".

France, unlike the Anglo-Saxon countries, has prohibited targeted policies, quotas or ethnic statistics to treat all citizens equally.

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  • Discrimination
  • Racism
  • Society
  • Statistics