Part of the cosmetics giant L’Oreal has been found guilty of racial discrimination after it sought to exclude non-white women from promoting its shampoo.
In a landmark case, the Garnier division of the beauty empire, along with a recruitment agency it employed, were fined €30,000 ($A50,000) each after they recruited women on the basis of race.
French campaign group SOS Racisme brought the case against L’Oreal, the world’s largest cosmetics company, over the campaign in 2000. Garnier France sought saleswomen to demonstrate the shampoo line Fructis Style in supermarkets outside Paris. They wanted young women to hand out samples and discuss hairstyling with shoppers.
In July 2000, a fax detailing the profile of hostesses sought by L’Oreal stipulated that women should be 18 to 22, size 38-42 (10-14) and “BBR” — the initials for bleu, blanc, rouge, the colours of the French flag.
Prosecutors argued that BBR, a shorthand used by the far right, was also a well-known code among employers to mean “white” French people and not those of North African, African and Asian backgrounds.
Christine Cassan, a former employee at Districom, a communications firm acting for Garnier, told the court her clients demanded white hostesses. She said that when she had presented candidates “of colour”, a superior in her own company had said she had “had enough of Christine and her Arabs“.
One woman working in the recruitment firm involved said foreign-sounding names or photos showing a candidate was of Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian or other African origin would ensure candidates were eliminated. Another said: “I once had a good woman candidate but she was non-white. I had to ask someone to pretend that our list was full. It was hard.”
President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Justice Minister, Rachida Dati, the first woman of North African origin to hold a ministerial post, has ruled that special departments in prosecutors’ offices should be set up to deal with discrimination.
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