Promoting Diversity in French Workplaces: Targeting and Signaling Ethnoracial Origin in a Colorblind Context

Abstract

The author analyzes the implementation of diversity policies in France within a traditionally colorblind institutional and cultural context. Using a mixed-method research design, the author focuses on a specific diversity program, gathering qualitative and quantitative data on persons involved in its implementation as well as on its recipients. The author also collects qualitative materials covering institutional actors (governmental services and state agencies) and field actors (associations and economic organizations). The analyses aim to investigate two main questions: (1) What are the population categories targeted by diversity programs, and how are they referred to in the colorblind political and legal context of France? (2) How do the program’s recipients signal categories that make them eligible, and how do they interpret their disadvantage in the job market? The findings highlight the limits of diversity policies in the French colorblind context as they fail to empower both their makers and their recipients.