Constraining the Mobilizations of Racial Minorities in France. Evidence from Two Ethnographic Surveys

France is well known for its colorblind political culture, which makes the expression of race in the public sphere complicated and contentious. Due to European Union regulations however, it has evolved in recent years by implementing minimal forms of public policies to prevent and sanction racial (among other criteria) forms of discrimination, in particular through the HALDE and now the Défenseur des Droits. Despite this minimal form of public recognition of the problem, it remains difficult to organize on the basis of ethno-racial identities without being qualified as "communautarian", i.e sectarian, self-segregating and divisive for the French Republic. In this paper we investigate the ways in which local governments constrain the mobilization of ethno-racial minorities in two French cities, Roubaix and Le Blanc Mesnil, where minorities are numerically over-represented and concentrated. We show that, in these cases, repression and the control of collective action take mostly the form of symbolic disqualification. It has also a more material embodiment however; it limits the types of financial resources available for organizing the fight against discrimination. Finally, we stress that these forms of subtle and infra-political constraints to collective action have to be replaced in a broader history of relationship between the French state, leftist political parties and ethno-racial minorities, where the later have often been co-opted by the local political field, impeding any form of contestation. These different elements explain the relative weakness of the mobilizations against racial discrimination in the French context.