Ms Sophie Malmquist, the head of catalogue distribution in France for the Swedish furniture chain IKEA, thought she was doing her job when she sent an email asking colleagues not to recruit persons of colour for door-to-door work. I'm sorry to say, Ms Malmquist wrote, but people are less likely to open the door for them. Under the 1972 French law that made racism a criminal offence, the IKEA executive was fined 30,000 francs (£3,600) last April.
Her case was rare in that documentary proof existed. We have one of the finest laws against racism in Europe, Mr Mouloud Aounit, the secretary general of the Movement against Racism and for Friendship Among Peoples (MRAP), says. But its an empty shell, unenforced and inefficient. Of about 100 people convicted of racist offences in France every year, the vast majority are found guilty of slurs or defamation.
Fines rarely surpass a few hundred francs and prison sentences are almost unheard of. Although racial discrimination in employment is widespread, only four French employers were convicted in 1999. Studies show that a Frenchman of Algerian origin, with the same qualifications as a blue-eyed Frenchman called Michel, has one-third the chance of finding a job, Mr Aounit says.
Most discrimination cases are thrown out of court for lack of evidence. This may improve if a revised labour code, to be voted by the French parliament before the end of this year, comes into force. It would lessen the burden of proof on victims. Until now, the labour code sanctioned discrimination in job offers and rejections, penalties and firing, explains Ms Heloise Heduin, a lawyer for the MRAP. The new code will address discrimination throughout a working life - in remuneration, training, child care . . .
The MRAP has campaigned for legislation against racism since 1949. Mr Aounit wants the EU to follow the lead taken by France, Britain and Belgium in establishing criminal sanctions for racism. The symbolism is important, yet he knows the hardest part is changing mentalities.
Mr Aounit calls the annual report on racism by the French Commission on Human Rights (under the authority of the French Prime Minister's office) a flashing red light. For the past five years, at least half of those questioned have said they consider themselves a little or somewhat racist. The largest number expressed antipathy towards North Africans followed by black Africans and Travelling people.
Nearly 60 years after France deported tens of thousands of Jews to Nazi death camps, 20 per cent of those questioned say they feel an aversion to Jews.
Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen's extremist National Front has been debilitated by the rift among its leaders, but the themes it built its popularity on - the threats of immigration, insecurity and the banlieues - have entered the discourse of the mainstream right. The ideas of the FN and the (breakaway) MNR have been sown; they've taken root and continue to grow, Mr Aounit explains.
Mr Aounit believes racism is fed by selective memory and truncated versions of history. The MRAP is campaigning for France to recognise its crimes in the 1954-62 Algerian war of independence, and to remember the Senegalese, Moroccan and Algerian soldiers who fought with the French in two World Wars.
Paris thanked them by freezing pensions when their governments won independence.
Tomorrow Conor Lally writes on racism in Australia
