In my experience of the French people that I have met, I have come across a lot of racism, from the majority of them.

[sillyme563]

There I said it. I have been married to my French husband now for ten years. I am Muslim and asian.

In the last ten years, I have never heard so much racism as I have in my entire life. Blatant, horrible, disgusting racism - most of it against either black people or Arabs/ Muslims.

'I would never go to South Africa. The safari experience would be good but I don't like black people'
'Gracie's Corner will spoil my child'
'Hijab wearing women are backwards'

ad infinitum.

I just spent the weekend with a couple of our friends from Paris. We walk past two girls in a hijab - cue obligatory conversation about how hijab wearing is wrong. I have to put up with these kinds of comments constantly, from his family and friends, and it's just sad because I have nieces who wear the hijab, and I can't invite them to things where the French are going to be there. I am getting so sick and tired of it, and I just don't have the inclination to be some sort of racial-social justice warrior to argue with all these nasty comments.

I think it’s fair to say that neither the English nor the French come well out of colonial rule.

IIrc the head of the Parisian police force at the time of the Algerian massacre was one Papon, who was heavily involved in Vichy France, later found guilty of crimes against humanity.

I stand by my reckoning of Vichy as a manifestation of an enduring hard right stream in French culture.

@Mirabai yes it was Papon, who was responsible for sending the Jews who lived in Bordeaux off to the concentration camps. After that he was in charge of a region in Algeria where they tortured civilians during the Algerian war. Then he somehow ended up with different high placed roles including in an aerospace company that was involved in developing concord and it wasn’t until the 90s that he was finally charged with anything. I fell into a rabbit hole reading about all of this a few weeks ago and it’s horrifying, there must have been so many people aware of what he’d done during all those years.

I would say she means France has had real issues with violence related to immigrant groups, in a way that the UK hasn't, and this may have impacted people's thoughts and feelings in different ways.

It really is. Many POC actually google “is xxx racist” before travelling to their chosen holiday destination location in Europe. It’s a shame but i can see why it happens. It’s very reasonable because the risk is high.