Starting on Thursday, 9 million French citizens will be invited to take part in the annual census. They will be asked three new questions, including one on the geographical origin of their parents. Fearing that the questions will be used for political purposes, associations and trade unions are calling on people not to answer them.

Residents celebrate Bastille Day in Valence (Drôme) on July 14, 2022.

NICOLAS GUYONNET / HANS LUCAS / AFP

Age, occupation, housing… Between January 16 and March 8, 9 million randomly selected French citizens will be invited to take part in the annual census conducted by the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (Insee) and local authorities. The aim is to find out the distribution of the population and its characteristics, in order to fine-tune the public policies deployed in each region.

For this campaign, three new items have been added to the questionnaire, of which there are now some thirty: frequency of teleworking, existence of a disability, and mother’s and father’s place of birth. But the introduction of this last item has divided those involved in the fight against discrimination.

Better document discrimination

Insee and the French Human Rights Defender, Claire Hédon, believe that this question is necessary in order to “highlight types of segregation or inequality of situation” linked to the parents’ origin, explains Muriel Barlet, head of the demography department at Insee, to franceinfo. This information is useful not only to public decision-makers, but also to researchers and teachers, adds the Rights defenders team, contacted by franceinfo.

“This will enable public debate to take place on an informed basis and not, as is all too often the case, on the basis of approximations, shortcuts or stereotypes,” the Défenseure des droits team explained to franceinfo.

On the other hand, the Humans Rights League (LDH), the Movement against racism for the friendship between the populations (Mrap) and three trade unions (CGT, FSU and Solidaires) are concerned about the “dangers” they see in this new feature. “The census is a public good (…), and we call on you not to answer this new question”, they say in a petition.

Useless” and “dangerous” information

“It is necessary for questionnaires to raise the issue of inequalities resulting from discrimination based on skin color, supposed religion or geographical origin,” Jan Robert Suesser, a member of the LDH national office, told franceinfo. In France, the use of ethnic statistics is authorized with rare exceptions, notably for scientific research. In this respect, several studies, such as the Trajectoires et origines survey carried out by Insee and Ined, already collect data such as skin color or parental origin.

For the association manager, however, the census is not the right tool for highlighting such discrimination.

“The question of the parents’ geographical origin is useless in the census, as it is not justified by the deployment of a public policy,” explains Jan Robert Suesser, member of the LDH national office, to franceinfo.

Jan Robert Suesser believes that politicians have sufficient information on the subject. In addition to studies already incorporating this type of question, the previous version of the census asked respondents their place of birth and date of arrival in France, if they were born abroad.

Worse still, according to Jan Robert Suesser, this novelty is even “dangerous”. “The only thing the question on parents’ origin adds is a very detailed knowledge of the geographical distribution of people” descended from immigrants, and not just the immigrants themselves. However, such counting could pave the way for unequal treatment on the part of “players who have nothing to do with the fight against discrimination”, he points out, even though national preference still features in the Rassemblement National’s program.

“Counting the foreign origins of the population at fine territorial scales would only serve to target populations, to stir up fears and to manipulate opinion on the occasion of ‘miscellaneous events’ that would lend themselves to speeches of rejection and exclusion”, alarmed the LDH and the CGT in an article published by Libération.

An addition validated by a “long consultation process”.

In response to these concerns, Insee stresses that the census offers a very large number of respondents, making it possible to “zoom in” on very specific situations of inequality, for example in a given employment area, or according to a specific wave of immigration.

The organization also points out that “census data are confidential and are not passed on to other administrations”. Neither they nor the general public will therefore have access to individual data. Furthermore, no data including parents’ origins will be published for areas “with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants”, in order to preserve this anonymity. Unlike the rest of the questionnaire, questions on disability and parental origin will be optional.

Finally, the institute emphasizes that the addition of the new questions was the subject of a “lengthy consultation process”, during which a sample of the population was consulted, as well as the Conseil d’Etat and the Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (Cnil). The latter considered that the introduction of the question on the origin of parents was “possible provided that all methodological precautions have been taken to guarantee data protection and that the acceptability of this question has been tested beforehand”.

source https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/