The ethnic census: for or against

The ethnic census: for or against

Samuel THOMAS, vice-president of SOS racisme and Patrick SIMON of the National Institute of Demographic Studies argue about ethnic statistics. For the first, it is the discriminatory systems that must be analyzed, and not the behavior of people from immigration or overseas territories. The demographer, meanwhile, believes that it is impossible to enforce equality without statistics and that knowledge is not dangerous for society, on the contrary. On the question of the political recovery of such an investigation and the questioning of the French republican model, the vice-president of SOS Racisme stresses that this risks exacerbating the communitarian demands. He says he is shocked that the state creates "subcategories of French", a principle defended by the extreme right. The INED researcher believes that far-right theses are built on fantasies and that statistics are a justified response to their discourses.

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File : Ethnic statistics

Publication date : 25 October 2007