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By Bombs_Away_LeMay

Comments: 11233, member since Mon Jan 06, 2003

On Thu Nov 06, 2008 08:21 PM

Publishers in France have been ordered to modernise school textbooks after they were found to be riddled with racial stereotypes and negative images of the elderly and disabled.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/3392461/French-schoolbooks-riddled-with-racist-stereotypes.html

French schoolbooks riddled with racist stereotypes
Telegraph

Publishers in France have been ordered to modernise school textbooks after they were found to be riddled with racial stereotypes and negative images of the elderly and disabled.

By Henry Samuel in Paris
Last Updated: 6:01PM GMT 06 Nov 2008

A study of more than 3,000 illustrations found in 29 of France's most commonly used school books revealed that black people were frequently portrayed as jazz musicians, good sprinters or poor, while children with foreign backgrounds were shown to be inferior academically than their white French peers.

The report by Halde, the state anti-discrimination body, cites an example of a picture of a girl with a "nice French name" getting top marks while her foreign-sounding classmate, Samira, failed the exercise.

In geography and social history textbooks, Africans are consistently shown as "poor and sick" - with the exception of one photograph of a "smiling Maasai herdsman surrounded by his flock while talking on a mobile phone".

The elderly are also depicted as decrepit and penniless, while the disabled and homosexuals are almost completely nonexistent.

Women, often depicted as housewives or secretaries, come across less favourably than men, who were far times more present in illustrations and far more often in positions of professional superiority.

While is ruthlessely politically correct, the report underlines France's struggle to contend with racism and intolerance in a country where gathering official statistics on race and religious beliefs is taboo.

Halde called on editors to update their texts and pictures to reflect modern France, and for the French education system to make it clear that discrimination is an offence. It conceded that improvement had been made in recent years but there was a lack of "counter-examples" - positive images to counter negative ones.

"School books represent society as it was ... but not as it must become, so this reinforces the idea that certain people should occupy certain positions," said Louis Schweitzer, head of Halde. "It's very important if we want change to show that in fact everything is possible for everyone."

President Nicolas Sarkozy has won praise for nominating a "rainbow" government including three high-profile women from ethnic minorities. But there is only black politician in the French National Assembly.

Politicians promised to tackle racial discrimination following the 2005 riots in France's suburban housing estates. Many say these were fuelled by anger against institutionalised racism and the difficulty to get a job if applying with a foreign-sounding name.

Television could play a role, as it has in America, said Mr Schweitzer. "The fact that a very popular American series, 24, showed a black candidate being elected president a few years ago was very important, as it made people think: yes, it's possible," he said.

France's top channel, TF1, put its first ever primetime black news presenter on air only two years ago.

The country is home to five million Muslims, including a large north African population.

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