PARIS (AP) — Ahead of France’s presidential elections, you might find polls showing how factory workers or university students are likely to vote — but don’t look for data on how black or Muslim voters are expected to cast ballots.

A 1978 law forbids anyone, from government census-takers to private researchers, from counting citizens based on their ethnic, racial or religious background. Though the law allows a few exceptions, it makes it virtually impossible for pollsters or political parties to measure support for candidates among those various constituencies, a situation that would be unimaginable in a US presidential election.

Questions about France’s diversity have played a central role in the campaign for two-round presidential elections April 22 and May 6, particularly about integrating France’s millions of Muslims. Yet the campaign teams of incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy and his challengers have no polling statistics on levels of support or issues of concern among voters of North African descent, who make up most of France’s Muslims.


“We need to drop this French hypocrisy,” said Kamel Hamza, the head of an association of elected officials from ethnic minority backgrounds. “We’ve been talking about diversity for 30 years, it’s time to finish this debate. If the US and others can do it, why not us?”


Unlike the more multicultural models in Britain or the US, France maintains that it’s easier to integrate newcomers if every citizen is considered just French, and not classified in an ethnic community.




Sarkozy, whose father was a Hungarian immigrant, squarely rejected affirmative action for France. But in a significant departure from French practice, he raised the possibility that scientists might begin gathering statistics on ethnicity — long taboo in a country that is officially colorblind.





Socialist candidate Francois Hollande is so opposed to counting people by race that he even proposed deleting the word “race” from the French constitution. The word is only mentioned in passages outlawing or denouncing any distinction among races.


The taboo on making ethnic distinctions reflects a “fundamental difference in political systems” between France and the United States, said Nicholas Dungan, a senior fellow at Washington DC-based think tank Atlantic Council.



Whereas in the US primary campaigns appeal to the party faithful before broadening out in the general election, “French campaigns start in the center and stay there,” Dungan said. “They focus less on marginal voters.”

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.