A bill has been approved in the French National Assembly that takes the country a step closer to banning discrimination in the workplace against hairstyles.
The draft legislation will now be debated in the Senate.
The BBC reports that the law will bar employers from requiring hair to be straightened and for afros, dreadlocks and braids to be covered.
Its author, Olivier Serva, an MP from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, hopes the law will support those, particularly black people, who have faced workplace hostility. According to the BBC, the bill does not specifically target race-based discrimination, though that is the law’s primary motivation.
It will also protect blondes and redheads, as well as bald victims of what it calls ‘hair prejudice’.
Serva cited an American study which pointed out that a quarter of black women said they had been ruled out for jobs because of how they wore their hair at the interview.
He is quoted as saying: ‘People who don’t fit in Eurocentric standards are facing discrimination, stereotypes and bias.’
Critics of the bill say existing French law already bans the compilation of personal data about an individual’s race or ethnic background on the basis of the French Republic’s ‘universalist’ principles.
Anti-racism campaigners say the fact that the bill does not include the term ‘racism’ is problematic, given many including public figures have faced negative comments online because of the way their natural hair looked.
[Image: Romina Farías on Unsplash]