Dominique Sopo, president of anti-discrimination group SOS Racisme, says today, France’s ethnic immigrant youngsters are broadly viewed with hostility.
He said many are cut off in the gritty suburbs known as banlieues — not just physically through lack of public transportation to get to places like Paris — but also symbolically and psychologically.
For France’s soccer team, sports has helped to erase those barriers. President Emmanuel Macron hosted the players at the Elysee Palace on Monday. But critics say he has not done enough for the other youngsters that Sopo is talking about.
In May, Macron rejected a massive overhaul plan for the banlieues, settling for more modest measures. And like many countries in Europe, France is cracking down on immigration.
Still, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer believes the picture is brighter than critics claim. Integration, he told French radio, is not stalling, it’s actually going pretty well. Many immigrants are rising socially and their children go on to earn academic degrees their parents never could.
Sopo of SOS Racisme agrees there is another face of immigration in France. It’s Les Bleus, as the members of the national team are known.
They’re winners, he said. They’re likeable and they’re at ease with their immigrant origins. But he doubts this positive image will last unless political leaders and French society build on it.
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