France must introduce a law banning hair discrimination against natural afro hairstyles and braids, a lawmaker from Guadeloupe has argued as he prepares a cross-party bill to be presented to parliament in the autumn, reports The Guardian.
“Just as the Republic’s motto is ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’, this is about allowing everyone to be as they are and as they want to be, whether in it’s in the workplace or anywhere else,” Olivier Serva told France Info radio.
Serva, who left Macron’s centrist party, La République En Marche, and sits with a different centrist opposition grouping, said he was seeking calm “cross-party consensus”. In order to introduce a law on hair discrimination, he had approached all other parties in parliament except the far-right National Rally.
He said the law was about “fighting against any form of discrimination linked to hair texture, length, colour and style”.
Serva said the case of a black flight attendant for Air France who took his employers to an industrial tribunal because of discrimination over his braids had showed how France needed to tighten up legislation with a specific text on hair discrimination, and also increase awareness in the workplace and broader society.