Real estate racism: Living in Paris as a person of colour

One day, Nicolas and Fatima – two individuals who make the same amount of money, with the same educational background, and with native French skills – decided to look for apartments as they both had moved to Paris.

They contacted a real estate agency and started submitting their requests online. They prepared a large file, a detailed explanation of their financial stability, their family, education, cultural background, bank statements and finally a copy of their passport along with the residency card.

"How can the colour of skin still manage to affect your quality of life in 2022? Is it something related to the politics of France?"

Nicolas was asked when he could move in, so he did and within a month he moved to a nice apartment in central Paris. Fatima was asked to pay one year upfront as a security deposit.

Fatima is Algerian but she speaks French fluently. She ended up staying in an Airbnb for four months until she managed to find an apartment in Saint-Denis, north of Paris – where she did still have to pay a security deposit of two months upfront before she called Saint-Denis her home.

Instances like this are common if you are an Algerian or Moroccan unless you move to an African populated area outside of Paris or pay six months or one year of rent upfront.

In March 2022, the French newspaper Le Parisian published a report made by the SOS Racism organisation that aims to highlight and focus on racial discrimination in France and how to abolish it.

The report found that one in four agencies agree to select potential tenants based on a prejudicial criterion and that discriminatory practices are alive and well in real estate in France, indicating that many owners prefer a certain sect or race over another to live in their property.

How do you capture a racist? One must ask and the answer is by pretending to be one.

Several activists from SOS Racism contacted 136 agencies by telephone pretending to be landlords with discriminatory demands on their future tenants. 

The shocking result

While they would meet all the solvency conditions, people of Sub-Saharan or North African origin have a one in two chance of contacting an agency that would agree to practice or allow discrimination against them, according to the SOS survey.

The details are harder to hear, one agency out of four refuses to make the selection itself but lets the owner choose his future tenants by not accepting an Arab or black profile to avoid neighbourhood problems. According to the SOS sample that included 32 agencies out of 136.

Another finding is that one out of the four agencies agree to select potential tenants directly based on a racially discriminatory criterion.

Another finding is that one agency out of 2 refuses to select based on a racially discriminatory criterion i.e., 70 out of agencies out of 136. All the agencies included in the sample belong to the FNAIM network, but also at century 21, guy Hocquet, Stephane Plaza or even Orpi.

When trying to interview other agencies for The New Arab, some agencies in Paris refused to participate in this article.

Another survey three years ago was made available by SOS Racism where 51% of the rental agencies in the capital region of France accepted their own discriminatory demands.

SOS Racism is a movement of NGOs which describe themselves as anti-racist. The oldest chapter of SOS Racism was founded in 1984 in France, and it has counterparts in several other European countries or regions.

Faced with this observation, SOS Racism calls for various measures, including a "strengthening of criminal sanctions in the event of discrimination", but also the "implementation of a disciplinary order" by restoring "the disciplinary function of the National Council for the transaction and property management, abolished by the Elan law of 2018”

To obtain accommodation in the region of Paris and its cities, not all applicants are on equal footing, an Asian profile is 15% less likely to have accommodation than a person of former French origin, and a person from north African origin has a 28% less chance and a person from overseas or sub-Saharan Africa has a 38% less chance to live the Parisian dream. 

Dominique Sopo released a statement in 2019 who is the president of the SOS association about the racial discrimination in the housing market and simply said “that’s enough”.

"Landlords usually prefer to rent to people who are like them, and what I mean by that is those who look like them"

Emmanuel Dupuy, the president of the Prospective and Security in Europe Institute told The New Arab that, “this type of real estate racism is not only found in France, but it is also, in fact, systemic in urban European cities. There are several factors that contribute to this like financial conditions, different characteristics of neighbourhoods, populations leaving city centres and moving to more open spaces in the suburbs, an increase of bureaucracy in the centres, and these racist phenomena in housing have emerged everywhere in Europe and there are organisations like Caritas, or SOS Racism who are fighting this, France is not alone in this."

Ümit Dönmez who is an editor in chief of Actu Global commented on this issue from a personal experience as he has covered this story same story for his publication.

He said that “Like a darker coloured person and as a Muslim, I was personally the victim of such discrimination and so many times. From my childhood onwards and with situations that were so caricatural, you could make movies out of them. But I do not want to get into detail about all that. I lived many years in the UK as well, and I was a victim of several incidents over there, but not as much as in France, and not so extreme or blunt.

"In France, and since 9/11 the trend became clear as it may be in the UK as well. Xenophobia was on the rise, some factors contributed to the rise of this type of discrimination in France, like the media here where many independent media outlets were bought by French far-right or conservative French billionaires with their vision of what France should look like.

"In consequence, state-owned media turned this racist act into a trend by giving voice to xenophobic ideas like interviewing Former presidential nominee Eric Zemmour who finished last with only 7% of the total vote and never made it past the first round. This trend led to hate speech from populist politicians which in return led to far-right ideologies being spread and shared in conversation in public media.” 

Nadia Cherif Raghuibi, a commercial consultant and a radio host who has worked on many commercial and financial institutions and dealt with Arab and foreigners alike has shared her experience on this topic, by saying that racism exists in real estate and has become a big issue because there is a gap between tourism and permanent housing in France."

She added, “Airbnb is easy but for permanent housing is a little more complicated, last week I witnessed something that happened with an Arab female student who was asked to pay 1 year upfront in rent as a security deposit by her French landlord and this is not usual. I think that real estate in France is competitive and French laws support renters more than landlords even if renters pay rent late, landlords won’t kick out renters easily.

“Landlords usually prefer to rent to people who are like them, and what I mean by that is those who look like them and they think this is systematical will guarantee their rent to be paid on time, unlike Arabs or Africans who will not do the same thing which is not fair."

"French colonial past has had its share of impact on racial discrimination, as you can find it in every company, every home, every institution in France and it varies in level and type, xenophobia is directly the result of France's slavery policy"

Going back in time, if one asks why immigrants or expats face racism the president of MRAP Francois Sautery could easily answer this question by focusing on the historical aftermath of France’s colonial past.

"French colonial past has had its share of impact on racial discrimination, as you can find it in every company, every home, every institution in France and it varies in level and type, xenophobia is directly the result of France's slavery policy.

"The end of the Algerian war, the fear experienced by thousands of young French people in mainland France, and the return of returnees sometimes under the constraint of the organisation of the secret army explains the anti-Arab racism."

The New Arab contacted Corinne Jolly, the president of PAP.Fr an online rental agency and a database that offers available rentals around France.

When asked about racism Jolly had another impression. “We do not discriminate personally or take measurements of racial profiling, on the contrary, racism has decreased overall. We have long had significant diversity among our real estate consultants. 

"About 20 years ago, some consultants chose to 'Frenchify' their first name to avoid derogatory remarks from our clients. This is no longer the case. In addition, we also have more diversity among the owners. Many people who immigrated to France a generation ago are now homeowners. This proves that – behind the media hype – integration is happening."

When asked if Jolly has witnessed racially discriminatory requests from people looking for an apartment or from landlords she said, “We review all advertisements and do not allow any discriminatory language to be used. We also inform many places on our website about the sanctions incurred in case of discriminatory practices.

"In fact, very few landlords still try to include discriminatory language in their ads, which proves that they know it's illegal. Furthermore, we encourage tenants to fill out a rental file with the objective criteria that must be considered when looking for a home (income, professional situation, guarantees), and when this file is filled out, we put it forward to the owner. The objective is to put factual and objective criteria before any other form of criteria.”

Despite the discrimination cases that are happening in France, there are several organisations and companies that are working on demolishing it, so this could mean that if another Fatima or another Mohamad decides to live in Paris, it may be easier.  

Farah AlHashem is an award-winning Kuwaiti-Lebanese filmmaker and journalist based in Paris.

Follow her on Twitter: @AlhashemFarah