3Rights held back

Historically designed as a place for emancipation, school is not always a refuge from inequalities. They are manifested through visible phenomena, such as discriminatory harassment, but also through more subtle forms, such as “school segregation”: some establishments group together pupils from working class backgrounds, where young people perceived as being foreign are more numerous. According to the OECD, 40 % of pupils in public education are disadvantaged, against 17% in private education.

Furthermore, difficulties related to living conditions may be interpreted as educational limitations, directing students towards sectors that are not appropriate to their needs or their potential. In this way, 65 % of students in secondary level vocational training come from working class backgrounds, against 29 % in general and technological secondary school education.

These dynamics are combined with regional gaps, between mainland France and overseas territories. In Mayotte for example, children of foreign-born parents encounter obstacles to gaining education: in 2020, the island had 15,462 minors who were not in enrolled at school.

Caravans, camps, furnished hotels. The works gathered here show precarious living spaces, those of families relegated to the peripheries of cities. Behind these images, we can sense lives become invisible, rights ignored, policies that enclose and exclude.

Housing is an area in which discrimination is exercised in concrete, but often concealed ways. According to SOS Racisme, 50 % of estate agencies accept discriminatory requests from landlords (2022 data). Refusing tenants, urban segregation and renovation policies that exclude draw unequal geographical lines in cities.

Living somewhere is not just having a roof over one’s head: it is also about participating in society as a whole. And yet, this opportunity is not guaranteed for all. Some are deprived of a “right to the city”; in other words, the possibility to find housing at an affordable price, to take advantage of public services and suitable transport, as well as to access decision-making spaces that allow them to contribute to the urban planning in their region.

Racism leaves a mark on the body and the mind. In the 1950s, Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist and anti-colonialist figure, analysed the trauma produced by colonial domination. Today, the French researcher Maboula Soumahoro talks about the “racial load” to describe the psychological erosion related to the repeated experience of racism: fatigue, stress, a sense of not being fully recognised.

Finding it hard to be heard is also found in a medical setting. Stereotypes persist, such as the “Mediterranean syndrome”, that leads to an underestimation of the pain felt by patients of colour. These representations can lead to late diagnoses and inappropriate treatments.

A fragment from the triptych 17.10.61 consecrated to the massacre of 17 October 1961 alludes to the deadly repression by French police of a peaceful demonstration held in Paris. A counter-investigation conducted by Le Monde and Forensic Architecture pieces together the circumstances surrounding the death of Adama Traoré, who has become a contemporary symbol of the combat against police violence. Both cases allow us to perceive forms of violence that can still be difficult to acknowledge as such.

While the police force embodies the authority of the State, its presence does not have the same effect on everyone. According to a survey by the Défenseur des droits (Ombudsman for Rights) published in 2005, young men who are perceived as being black or Arab are twenty times more likely to be stopped and checked.

Faced with this violence, collective forms of mobilisation have emerged, such as Black Lives Matter or Roma Lives Matter. They remind us that these practices are not just isolated cases, but a structural problem that can be observed in many countries.

Before they even open their mouths, some people immediately appear to be “where they belong” while other constantly have to prove themselves. In France, having a name that is perceived as being North African greatly reduces the chances of being contacted by a recruiter.

To believe or not believe is part of ordinary life. For many, religion is part of simple gestures, relationships, habits, practices or forms of care. It can be experienced in a private way, but also collectively, as a way of existing in the world and interacting with others.

In a context in which antisemitic and anti-Muslim acts are on the increase, some forms of religious expression have become sources of tension in the public space. Clothing, dietary customs or places of worship can be subject to suspicion, inspection, even prohibition or penalties.