Census and Racial Categorization in France

Abstract

The question of whether to accept the data collection of racial and ethnic statistics is part of a debate in France that has been going on for 20 years, as French census does not include racial or ethnic categories. Over the years, there have been several attempts—mostly unsuccessful—by scholars, nongovernmental organizations, and also elected officials, to argue in favor of the inclusion of “ethnic statistics,” as it has come to be called in France. Through the examination of the structure of the census and other state-sanctioned enumeration processes in France, this article explores the relationship between France’s color-blind discourse with regard to racial categorization and the material conditions of racial inequality. This article offers an alternative to previous explanations as to why France refuses to include race and ethnicity in its census. I argue that the so-called colorblindness of the French census can be best analyzed through the lens of Bonilla-Silva’s concept of color-blind racism and Feagin’s concept of white racial frame. This article claims that the principles of universalism and national identity in the French Republican order, constructed in opposition to multiculturalism and differentialism, serve as the dominant white racial frames that deny the reality of social relations based on race and support a color-blind racism.