Any black mums in France?

[saintpeta]

Any black families who have moved from UK to France? in particular south france? am looking for a little insight. Want to know how my sons would be regarded and if there would be any real hassle. Or is the racism issue overated?

What's your ethnic background?

I think it depends where you live. At my daughter's school (Paris) there are people from lots of different ethnic backgrounds but they are all middle-class / professional families and open-minded...

Not sure if my experience is relevant here but I'll tell you about it anyway lol

I'm not black but DH is algerian, and we have lived in a village in north west france for almost 2 years. Nobody has ever been openly racist to DH, and all the neighbours are friendly. However, he did find it difficult to find a job at first, but I really couldn't say if that was due to racism or not. He also had slight problems with the jobcentre, but I don't think that's due to racism, because nobody has anything good to say about the jobcentre here!

The DDs are too young for school (eldest 20 months) so don't know what that will be like. Random strangers keep commenting on what a nice tan they have, tho. This is starting to bug me but it's definately not meant to be offensive.

There are still some racists about though. My aunt & uncle won't speak to DH (or to me) because he is algerian & a muslim. They are the exception in my family

I think it deends where you go and what community you live in. I find france quite racially polarised - there are definite ghettoes here, but like Anna, there are also brilliantly integrated families, of all nationalities who don't fall into any racial box. One of my dds best friends is a little black girl whose mother makes Naomi Campbell look ordinary ....

Sorry last post was cut short by dd1 pressing send! I agree with the last poster about it depending on the community where you live.

Where in the south?

We have had a number of racist incidents over the phone (dh has an arab surname), and we have heard casual racist comments that raised my hackles but were not meant viciously (e.g. referring to Africa as 'chez les noirs', inappropriate comments about the chinese).

However I suspect that much f the nastiest racism is against northern Africans rather than blacks.

I was suprised at how little racism dh has encountered, as apart from my uncle and aunt nobody has been properly nasty. Maybe we've just been lucky, I don't know.

scouserabroad, I think it's a lot better in the north than in the south. I have to say I was very surprised at the racism we encountered, it was quite unexpected.

Perhaps it's particularly obvious to us because the treatment we get over the phone (based on dh's name, I guess) is very different from what we get in person (we are both white).

I want to live in a community that is accepting with a mix of nationalities , people who are open minded professional, but we don't want to go to Paris and thought of the Languedoc region . I am from afro caribbean decent and dh half nigerian/italian I think we have to come over and get a feel this summer boys are 2 and 4

Message withdrawn

I'm in Provence.
We used to live in an overseas département with a huge diversity of populations. We were stunned when we arrived here. Forget Peter Mayle: we live in a once prosperous, run-down, dirty town centre with a high Northern African and gitan population, unemployment, petty crime, drug dealing and a growing accommodation problem. The tension is quite palpable and frequently spills over into knife fights, or 30 guys with baseball bats and sundry other weapons out to "get" a gitan following an exchange of pleasantries. Anyone who can afford it lives on a lotissement on the outskirts.

When we were looking for a place to rent, people openly asked us over the phone what we looked like before agreeing to show us properties. One black woman explained later that she suffered so much racism from "les Arabes" that she would have been scared to show DH round the flat if he had been North African.

I think anti-Algerian feeling is stronger in the South because many of the pieds noirs settled around the Mediterranean on their return to France and have remained very bitter. Older immigrants from Italy or Spain are also very pro-FN, paradoxically.

What strikes me is the openness of the racism; people assume that their views are shared by all, and feel free to express them vocally.

You do definitely need to come over and get a feel for different towns; ours is extreme, and is the only one like it in the area. Perpignan was hit by raging battles between gitans and North Africans not so long ago, while neighbouring towns are calm.

"What strikes me is the openness of the racism; people assume that their views are shared by all, and feel free to express them vocally."

Sadly, I fear that I have to agree with AuldAlliance on this one; probably yet another reason why I want my daughter to go to her private, bilingual school where the huge mix of ethnicities (albeit middle-class) is such that views like that are not commonly expressed/held.

Only on Sunday was I at a lunch with people I had never previously seen in my life who within a few minutes of meeting me were complaining quite openly about how many Pakistanis, Sri Lankans and other non-European children there were in their children's class at school .

"What strikes me is the openness of the racism; people assume that their views are shared by all, and feel free to express them vocally." I know about this from friends who have told me they experienced the same - just because they were white they heard alot more racist comments from complete strangers than I! (I worked in Spain for 5 years). I & DH can handle ourselves- but with kids to think about I was even thinking of putting them into private school like Anna8888. So I've a lot of research to do first...thanks everyone

I lived 8 years in Paris.

I'm totally white, pretty, smart, well educated, well to do family and was in the best law school and still was exposed to very basic crude racism.
Coming from the land of the enlightenments I found hypopcritical comments such as "Oh but we are not talking about you, you are not like them" ( arabs/muslims) particularly offensive.

Good luck!
I second all that's been said above.
I would never ever go back because of the narrow minded french attitude to foreigners.

I've lived in 5 european countries most with troublesome immigrant populations and yet never felt racism like in France ( well maybe in the Netherlands)

I am white but have lived in both Paris and the North and was shocked at the racism I saw, mainly towards Arabs. Where I was living, society was very segregated and people tended to live in their own little communities. I taught in a school and even the teachers referred to "les arabes" et "les francais", meaning "foreigners" (even though French-born)children and white kids.

Not everyone is rascist but any stretch of the imagination but I don't think different races integrate as well as they do in Britain.

Another thing I noticed was there was very few ethnic minorities on TV - all presenters white etc.

A little old lady once said to me (and I think it was a compliment) "we don't mind the English, it is the arabs we detest!"

I agree with branflake, on the TV stuff, also the vast majority of images of children (in adverts but also govt health leaflets, etc.) are blond and blue eyed. I was trying to get some children's books and ALL the drawings of children seemed to be white!

I noticed the TV thing too, I've never seen a kid that looks like the DDs on an advert.

There is Harry Roselmack (sp?) who reads the news sometimes.

ggglmpp lol at little old lady, my nan was just like that before she met DH (algerian muslim). Then she changed her mind to the point where she spent ages trying to find an arabic language version of the quran for his birthday (not easy in a small town in france!)

Very true. Appalling lack of positive images on diversity.

Generally speaking the french have a very "petit bourgeois" provincial take on life.

I have many dear friends in France and I"m still "culturally" very french but moving to the UK 10 years ago was a real eye opener.
I did not take offence to that when I lived there.I thought that was the norm of what an immigrant was exposed to in Europe. Having to work overtime to prove your worthiness and be and think as "white" as possible.
In the UK I realised that your difference can be an economic asset in a working/social environment and that you can be judged on your own merits and progress professionally without a glass ceiling (and a bid thick steel door to start with!).

Anyway, be prepared. You will be exposed somehow.

We studied these differences at university. IIRC the way it works in France is assimilation and in the UK it is integration. Is that right? (I don't know why but at the time I found 18 Century literature more interesting. )