Préférence Nationale

Teaching Ethics with Short Stories (TESS) is a collection of short stories and guiding questions that encourages discussions over a wide range of ethical questions. In this post, I answer the questions on Préférence Nationale.

“Préférence Nationale” is a phrase that indicates that certain benefits—such as the rights to employment and social security—should be restricted to French citizens. Fatou Diome argues that it is through the actions of individual citizens that Préférence Nationale is being implemented. Explain.

Diome argues that it is through the actions of individual citizens that préférence nationale is being implemented: “Laws only gather pace when ordinary people start applying them. […] It is thus the small employers who make préférence nationale something to be reckoned with.”

I interpret this to mean “ordinary people” or “small employers” were responsible for the restriction of certain benefits (e.g., employment rights, social security rights) to French citizens. Préférence nationale was possible only because some of these individuals had complied to it; if all of these individuals had stood up against préférence nationale, then it would not have been possible.

Fatou Diome objects to citizenship laws in France on grounds of marriage. What is it precisely that she objects to? What might be the motivation for such legislation? She argues that descendants of people from former French colonies have not been given what is due to them. Why not?

Diome objects to the conferral of French citizenship, to African women married to French men, only after two years after marriage. The motivation for such legislation might be to discourage African women from marrying French men just to be conferred French citizenship.

She argues that descendants of people from former French colonies have not been given what is due to them: Although “France is a granary on stilts … some of [which] come from Africa,” she “[mis]treats his children who have come to reclaim it.” If French men deserve French citizenship because their ancestors built France, then African women should also deserve French citizenship because their ancestors grew “sugar cane and peanuts” and “kill[ed] in the name of freedom” for France. However, these women are not conferred French citizenship like the French men.

Diome addresses explicit discrimination in employment against blacks in France. In The New York Times article “Racial bias, even when we have good intentions,” Sendhil Mullainathan describes implicit racial biases in hiring practices and levels of trust across society. What examples does he provide? How do these mechanisms of implicit bias operate?

Mullainathan describes implicit racial biases in hiring practices and levels of trust across society. Companies are more likely to hire a candidate with a stereotypically white name as compared to a candidate without a stereotypically white name: “Emails sent to faculty members at universities, asking to talk about research opportunities, were more likely to get a reply if a stereotypically white name was used.” In addition, landlords were more likely to respond to potential tenants with stereotypically white names as compared to those with stereotypically black names: “Several studies found that sending emails with stereotypically black names in response to apartment-rental ads on Craigslist elicited fewer responses than sending ones with white names.” These mechanisms of implicit bias operate “outside of our [conscious] awareness” based on “all the associations we have”.