|
Everything you always wanted to know about France - from France |
|
DiscriminationMONTPELLIER, France (AP) - A court fined a tourism office in southern France on Friday for complicity in racial discrimination in vacation rentals, in what an anti-racism group hailed as the first such ruling against a government agency.Three whistle-blowers from inside the office in Cap d'Agde, on France's Mediterranean coast, brought the case to light in September 2003, saying that about 10 real estate agents had persuaded the office to pull North African-sounding names from its reservation database for the region's popular resorts. A criminal court in nearby Beziers fined the office the equivalent of $27,000 Cdn, parties to the case said. Reservations director Viviane Praz was convicted and given a 15-day suspended jail sentence. "It's the first time that we've gotten such a penalty for racial discrimination," said Samuel Thomas, vice-president of advocacy group SOS Racisme, which had been alerted to the discrimination by the whistleblowers. "It's also the first time that a public institution has been convicted of racial discrimination," he said, despite repeated lawsuits filed against unemployment offices and public housing providers. The verdict comes as France is strengthening its legal arsenal in the fight against racial discrimination - often cited by immigrants and their children in troubled suburbs where rioting erupted last year. France enacted an equal opportunities law this month supporting the use of anonymous resumes to help job seekers avoid discrimination based on foreign-sounding names or addresses in neighbourhoods in which many immigrants live. It also permits undercover checks of nightclubs, employment agencies and other establishments for possible discrimination. copyright - The Canadian Press 2006 There are over 2,000 features and articles on this site about French life and living in France. You can search from the search box above. Do browse through our website and please use the advertising links, they help pay for the site. I do try to reply to all mail - Contact Me - most is about property or living in France. I publish comments in this newsletter which I believe are of interest and may help find answers for people wanting to come to France. I hope readers will go to the adverts which help support our overheads. |
|