YOUR LIFE EXPERIENCES
Manon, 25, lives in Gironde. In 2017, this apprentice obtained an interview in a bakery near Bordeaux, in order to pass a CAP. But once there, his recruiter spent most of the interview to criticize overweight, going so far as to explain that his physique could undermine the image of the shop. At the microphone of Olivier Delacroix, on Europe 1, Manon returns on this traumatic episode.
"My telephone conversation had gone really well, I had sent a CV and a letter of motivation by email, and on my CV there was no picture, the first contact was just made. the voice and went very well. [It was] a very charming and kind gentleman.
[The day of the interview], I arrived, the employer opened the door of his office and when he saw me, looked at me from top to bottom, took a step back while I held out my hand to shake his, and said, "Ah, but you're fat!"
There, I said to myself, 'Yes, Mazette! What is that, what is this man? ' At that time, I was very complex, I was on a diet, and the only thing I managed to tell him was: 'Yes, but I go on a diet' ... as if it was my fault I almost felt obliged to apologize [...].
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After this sad preamble, the interview turns on the ordeal: the employer focuses the discussion only on the physical of the young postulant
All the maintenance was done, not compared to the cap of vendor in bakery, but on my weight. 'Vis-à-vis customers, the image you send back by being fat ... it's not very good for the company', 'you'll be stuck in some places in the bakery, you're so fat, you're 'not going to pass'. He also told me, what shocked me: 'I have an employee who was fat like you before. I forced her to put on a gastric band, she did not want to, but now it's better, she thanks me. '
I was disgusted, but I said to myself: 'Go to the end of the interview, do not be rude. The problem does not come from you, but from him. If he ever had contacts to find work, I did not want to have a bad image that would have turned against me. [...] I went to the end of the interview while I knew that I was not going to work for him. He told me: I will call you back, and he never called back. "Good, because I would not have answered.
By telling her loved ones what happened to her, Manon was advised to make a complaint ... which she finally gave up.
When I left, I was angry. I thought, 'What are these people?' [...] Everyone told me that I have the right [to make a complaint] "Do not let yourself go!" [...] Maybe I should have done it, not thinking about myself, but thinking about the others to whom this man could do that too, I thought it was tiring to get into it. the recoil, if it were to happen again, I would not let myself go.
I have always been discriminated because of my weight, I am round since I was very young. From the college, it was terrible. I realized that I will never be normal. In fact, it's the others who have a problem, not me. I'm normal, me. "
Discrimination at work, more pronounced in small structures
One in four French people said that they had been the victim of stigmatizing remarks at work during the last five years, according to the September 2018 barometer of the Defender of Rights on the perception of discrimination in employment. "On a daily basis, in a rather banal way, French people who are supposed to be equal before the law and the Republic undergo permanent discrimination, in the access to internships and employment", deplores the microphone of Olivier Delacroix Christophe Radé, Professor at the Faculty of Law of Bordeaux, specialist in labor law.
"Equality is not simply to tell all citizens that they have the same rights, it is also to implement, on a daily basis, this equality of treatment and to allow those of diversity or who particular personal characteristics to have the same opportunities as others, "he insists.
To combat discriminatory hiring practices, the government launched anti-discrimination tests in 2018 among the 120 largest French companies. An initiative that greets Christophe Radé, but which, according to him, is still too limited insofar as these phenomena concern mainly small structures. "Large companies have the means to train their managers and managers, and they also have the means, with staff representatives, to ensure hiring and recruitment policies, and that diversity is respected," explains -t it. In reverse, "in very small structures, in almost unipersonal businesses, employees find themselves face-to-face with their employer, or future employer, and have no support in the business to assert their rights. "