FRANCE: Spotlight on domestic racism

Despite a ban on large gatherings, an estimated 20,000 people gathered in Paris in June, marking the memory of Adama Traoré, a Black man killed by the police in 2016. People saw a clear parallel with the killing of George Floyd. Anti-racism protests, as well as health worker protests, were tacitly allowed to go ahead by the authorities despite the ban. Assa Traoré, Adama’s sister and the force behind the French BLM movement, made clear that the protests were intended not just to demand justice for her brother or improve policing practices, but also to raise awareness of systemic racism in a state where officially any racial differences are subsumed under the French identity, to the point that official statistics on race are not even gathered.