French say 'oui' to anti-racist manifesto

Source: Agencies  |   2008-11-11  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

INSPIRED by United States President-elect Barack Obama, the French first lady and other leading figures say it's high time for France to stamp out racism and shake up a white political and social elite that smacks of colonial times.

A manifesto published on Sunday - subtitled "Oui, nous pouvons!", the French translation of Obama's campaign slogan "Yes, we can!" - urges affirmative action-like policies and other steps to turn French ideals of equality into reality for millions of blacks, Arabs and other alienated minorities.

"Our prejudices are insidious," Carla Bruni Sarkozy, wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy, said in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche newspaper. She said she hoped the "Obama effect" would reshape French society.

Nations across Europe rejoiced over Obama's victory, seeing it as a triumph for American democracy and a world weary of US President George W. Bush. But Obama's election also illustrated an uncomfortable truth: How far European countries with big minority populations have to go getting nonwhites into positions of power.

Grassroots groups in France and Britain are trying to turn Obama's election into electoral gains for minorities at home. Sunday's manifesto suggests France's elites are taking notice, too.

"The election of Barack Obama highlights via a cruel contrast the shortcomings of the French Republic, and the distance that separates us from a country whose citizens knew how to go beyond the racial question and elect a man who happens to be black as president," the appeal said.

"What a lesson!" it went on. "We French ... should listen to it well." The manifesto was written by Yazid Sabeg, a French self-made millionaire whose parents were Algerian immigrants, and signed by politicians and other public figures.