Anouar Mhinat calls it "one little sentence too many." At the age of 24, this advertising manager in the luxury goods sector has plenty of examples. Like the interview with the human resources director of a polling institute: "Given your name and your face, it's a shame you don't specify that you're French on your CV." Or another manager's remark reproaching him for having made a spelling mistake. "If you're having trouble with the French language, don't hesitate to read some books!" she advised Mhinat, an avid reader.

Brought up in a working-class district of Chambéry (southeast France), the son of a plasterer and a housewife originally from Morocco, the young man was used to inappropriate remarks. When he started his studies at Sciences Po Grenoble there was an initial shock. "I could feel the difference," he said, "I was the scholarship holder – and a level 7, no less! – But I thought the gap would disappear when I got to work. But that's where it's most violent," he said. For him, that's all water under the bridge now. "In my current company, employees' origins are not an issue," stressed the young executive.

Economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, Marie-Anne Valfort confirmed that "small" advances have occurred in recent years in the fight against discrimination in hiring. The launch of a vast testing campaign aimed at large companies, in 2016, at the request of the labor ministry "was a moment of awareness for these major groups faced with the risk of being 'named and shamed.'" Added to this, in 2017, came the adoption of the "equality and citizenship" law requiring companies with more than 300 employees to train their recruiters in non-discrimination. "Despite all this, and even if it decreases with qualification level, discrimination against ethnic-racial minorities on the job market remains high in France," the researcher pointed out.

A large-scale examination of CVs conducted between December 2019 and April 2021, under the auspices of the labor ministry's Guidance for the Organization of Research, Study and Statistics has shown that applicants with a North African-sounding name – graduates of a CAP (professional degree) to a BAC + 5 (high school plus 5 years graduate study) – are 31.5% less likely to be contacted by recruiters. Discrimination in hiring is most pronounced in France according to a large scale 2019 American survey comparing the situation in nine countries (Belgium, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the USA).

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