Minorities Run for Parliament in Record Numbers
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, June 10, 2007
LYON, France -- When Najat Vallaud Belkacem, a Moroccan Muslim immigrant, applied to France's most prestigious political science university, she recalled, her high school teachers told her she'd never be accepted: She wasn't rich, she wasn't from Paris -- she wasn't even from France.
Vallaud Belkacem graduated high in her class at Paris's Institute of Political Sciences and today, at age 29, is a member of the most diverse group of candidates ever to seek national public office in France. More Arabs, Africans, Muslims, blacks and women are running for the National Assembly in Sunday's elections than in any campaign in French history.
"If we want to be heard, we have to engage," said Vallaud Belkacem, a Socialist Party candidate in this southeastern French city. "When politicians don't look like the people they represent, they can't understand the problems of the people they are supposed to represent."
Propelled by weeks of street violence in immigrant-dominated neighborhoods in 2005 and emboldened by record numbers of new voters from minority populations, French minorities are redefining the political debate and taking on the entrenched powers of one of the least diverse governments in Europe.
The new candidates are openly debating racism and discrimination in a country where it is illegal to collect data on race and ethnicity and where discussion of those issues was largely taboo in campaigns until this year's presidential election, which sent ruling party candidate Nicolas Sarkozy to the Elysee Palace.
"We're challenging this country," said Patrick Lozes, president of Action Circle for the Promotion of Diversity in France, an umbrella organization that represents dozens of local black political associations across France. "Look at France's record: black ministers -- zero; black representatives -- zero; black senators -- zero; black ambassadors -- zero; black CEOs of the country's top businesses -- zero."
Minorities hold about 13 of the 22 assembly seats representing overseas parts of the country such as Martinique. But they hold none of the 555 district seats representing continental France, where an estimated 10 percent of the population is made up of Africans, Arabs or other minorities.
At least 250 minority candidates are running for the National Assembly this year in continental France, compared with little more than a dozen five years ago, according to figures compiled from party records and associations that represent minorities. Precise figures are difficult to obtain because election authorities are not allowed to designate a candidate's race.
While those figures remain only a small percentage of the 7,639 candidates seeking legislative office, political analysts say they represent a seismic shift in French politics.
"The increasing number of minority candidates shows that a political revolution is underway," said Nordine Nabili, 39, a sociologist and chief of Bondy Blog, one of the most popular political blogs among young minorities in the heavily immigrant Paris suburbs. "People who live in the suburbs are questioning the system. Unlike traditional politicians, they speak their minds -- they are like republican kamikazes."
The candidate numbers for women are more dramatic. Forty-one percent of all candidates are female, largely because of a national law that requires parties to field an equal number of male and female candidates and deducts government campaign funds from parties that do not meet the quota. Neither of the main parties -- the ruling Union for a Popular Movement or the Socialists -- met its quotas this year.
In the current Parliament, 12 percent of the representatives are women.
The female quota rule has prompted some French to question whether similar quotas should be invoked for minorities. Last week, the leftist daily newspaper, Liberation, ran the front-page headline "The National Assembly: The White House," a reference to the all-white continental representatives.
"Should we impose rules so that our elected representatives become more diverse?" columnist Laurent Joffrin asked in that day's edition. "Let's dare talk about it."
The greatest obstacles for minority candidates in France are the established political parties, according to candidates, minority organizations and analysts.
Sarkozy's UMP, which will probably win about 41 percent of the National Assembly seats, according to polls released Friday, has 15 minority candidates running, the fewest of any major party. The Socialists, who are projected to lose seats, have fielded 20 minorities, according to the Representative Council of Black Associations, which has tracked the candidates in Sunday's election. The centrist Democratic Movement, or MoDem, party led by failed presidential contender François Bayrou has about 30 minority candidates.
In contrast, about 70 minorities are candidates from the Communist Party, and approximately 50 are running as representatives of the Green Party.
In districts where no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote Sunday, the top two vote-getters will face each other in runoffs June 17.
In France, legislative candidates are not required to run in districts where they reside, but in the district where they are registered to vote. As a result, political parties often field candidates according to their chances of winning -- or not winning -- a particular district.
"Big parties will send minority candidates to places they don't have a chance to be elected," said Samir Mihi, a 30-year-old social worker who was born in Algeria and is running in the legislative district that includes Clichy-sous-Bois, the Paris suburb where the 2005 rioting began. "I didn't want to be an alibi to a party trying to show it has minority candidates. I wanted to stay where I've lived and not be sent to central France or somewhere no one has ever heard of me. The best way to denounce this practice is to be an independent candidate."
On a recent spring night, Socialist candidate Vallaud Belkacem was walking through her hoped-for district, which includes working-class immigrant families as well as upper-crust French. She said the two groups treat her very differently.
"Rich people say, 'Oh, you speak perfect French,' " said Vallaud Belkacem, who moved to France from Morocco with her parents when she was 4 years old. "I get angry. It's normal for me, but not for them." For the children of immigrants like herself, Vallaud Belkacem said, "it's not a question of being a role model. Rather, I give them a mirror and a chance to recognize themselves in me."
She has worked for the mayor of Lyon for the past four years as his adviser on immigration and foreigners' rights. She left the job for two months to become a spokeswoman for Socialist presidential candidate Ségolène Royal, who lost in a runoff to Sarkozy.
"My parents didn't have the right to vote; they were foreigners. We never talked about politics, voting or elections at home -- never," said Vallaud Belkacem, who became interested in politics during a college internship at the National Assembly. "They don't understand what I'm doing, why I'm never free and have to work on weekends, why I go to markets all the time campaigning but never buy anything."
Running in a district where Sarkozy won 58 percent of the vote, she is given little chance of beating her seven-time incumbent UMP opponent. "This is a tough neighborhood," said Vallaud Belkacem. Asked if she thinks she can win, she admitted, "I don't have a big chance."
But she said the same Mark Twain quote that sustained her when her teachers said she couldn't make it into a top-flight French university boosts her morale on the campaign trail: "They didn't know that it was impossible, so they did it."
Researcher Corinne Gavard contributed to this report.
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