MUMBAI: “In stark contrast to Britain or the United States, where television stations endeavour to represent the ethnic make-up of the society they serve, when you switch on a television in France hardly a brown or black face can be seen,” writes Susan Bell in the Statesman.
The writer finds the situation so dire that, if historians of the future were to examine recordings of French television programming at the dawn of the 21st century they could be forgiven for deducing France was an almost exclusively white society. “That is particularly shocking when one considers that one French person in ten has ethnic origins outside the European Union,” Bell writes
France’s ethnic minorities are kept away from presenting the prime-time evening news, which are dominated by the white these days. The scenario is not different when it comes to TV dramas also as black actors from French territories are chosen to play only minor roles, that too to bring a touch of exoticism to the show.
Last month, there was a meeting between the heads of the country’s top television stations and officials of the HCI and the Conseil Supérieur d’Audio to discuss solutions to the problem.
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