In sure French departments, together with Seine-Saint-Denis, municipal mandates are vast open to ladies and folks belonging to visual minorities. However this construction conceals the reconfiguration of the “glass ceiling”, between discrimination, exclusion of the operating category and restriction to stereotypical positions.
A couple of weeks earlier than the municipal elections in March 2026, the query of the low representativeness of French political cadres is raised once more. In municipal councils, in addition to within the Nationwide Meeting, the professionalization of elected officers is accompanied through the digital disappearance of the operating category and the upkeep of assemblies which are predominantly white and presided over through males. In 2025, handiest 21% of mayors had been girls, and 9% declared themselves hired or operating.
What’s the state of affairs in Seine-Saint-Denis, a division marked through a historical past of “red suburbs”, the presence of the operating category and long-term immigration? Are candidate lists and municipal councils, on this division, as in different places, an increasing number of far away from the inhabitants they constitute?
To inspire those reflections, we percentage the primary result of a survey of 40 municipalities on this division, performed through a workforce from the colleges of Paris Nanterre, Paris 8 and Paris Dauphine. This analysis paperwork the evolution of applicants for municipal elections and for individuals of municipal councils from 2001 to 2020, in the course of the prism of social category, gender and race. She particularly analyzes where in politics of people who find themselves of decrease social standing, according to their meant beginning, look or title. Those individuals are referred to as “racial” or “visible minorities” right here.
Step forward for ladies and racial minorities in municipal councils
Because the municipal elections of 2001, the improvement of political team of workers within the Seine Saint-Denis has adopted nationwide tendencies. If the status quo of the Communist Birthday celebration of France (PCF) has lengthy appreciated the election of municipal councilors and mayors through employees, the presence of the operating category in municipal assemblies has now remained: handiest 11% of the folks elected in 2020 are hired or employees, whilst those classes constitute 53% of the lively inhabitants of the dept. As in different city municipalities, the municipal councils of the Seine-Saint-Denis are extra obtainable to managers (42% of folks elected in 2020, for 21% of the lively inhabitants of the dept). This dynamic is much more true for the mayor’s mandate: 25 mayors out of 40 are govt in 2020.
At the gender aspect, parity rules in politics bolstered the presence of girls. In 2020, they represented 48% of elected division officers. Alternatively, their percentage is not up to 50%, which is an indication that males are extra incessantly on the most sensible of the listing, as in different places. This feminization is accompanied through a robust social choice of elected girls who, like males, are incessantly managers (40% of elected officers).
On this context, this is a much less commented construction that stuck our consideration. Since 2001, the presence of individuals of visual minorities within the municipal councils of departments has higher. The 2008 elections that adopted the 2005 city riots marked a turning level: the percentage of racialized folks doubled on candidate lists and skyrocketed in municipal councils. It even triples throughout the municipal places of work (made up of the mayor and his deputies) that listen the truth of municipal executive.
In 2020, racialized folks now constitute greater than a 3rd (36.2%) of councilors, bettering the political illustration of the ward’s inhabitants.
As for ladies, this openness in large part favors the center and higher categories: 5 of the 7 racialized mayors elected in 2020 are executives or trade leaders, and none are employees or staff. Alternatively, many racist elected officers are the youngsters or grandchildren of working-class immigrants who’ve skilled social growth. Inside municipal councils, this trajectory distinguishes them from different elected officers, as does their early life (19% are underneath 30 in 2020).
Symbol: The percentage of racialized folks amongst applicants for municipal elections, elected officers of municipal councils and municipal places of work has been often expanding for the reason that 2008 elections.
Evolution of the proportion of racialized folks amongst applicants for municipal elections, within the municipal councils (CM) and within the municipal places of work (BM) of Seine-Saint-Denis, between 2001 and 2020. We see those 3 variables building up sharply in 2008 after which often toughen, regardless of a slight slowdown within the expansion of the proportion of municipal folks in Providraccouncil2020. through the creator
Within the municipalities of Seine-Saint-Denis, working-class illustration and gender or ethno-racial variety don’t pass hand in hand. To the contrary, the access of girls and racialized folks into municipal councils allows the strengthening of social variety, which leads to the invisibility of the operating category. Alternatively, are we able to conclude from this relative growth that racism and sexism have disappeared in politics?
The “glass ceiling” has now not disappeared, however has been reconfigured
First remark, girls and folks of colour proceed to stand obstacles in gaining access to responsibility. For the mayor’s time period, the “glass ceiling” holds easiest, particularly for ladies. Within the 40 municipalities of the dept, handiest 5 girls had been elected as mayors in 2020, without a growth in comparison to the former elections.
For folks of colour, this glass ceiling, lengthy impenetrable, is starting to crack. In 2014, Staines used to be the primary the town within the Seine-Saint-Denis to elect a descendant of Algerian immigration within the type of Azzedine Taybi. In 2020, that is the case with six different municipalities, bringing the selection of racist mayors to seven. Two biracial girls additionally entered the location all over their phrases in 2016 and 2022, following the resignation of the present mayor. The primary used to be now not renewed within the subsequent election, and the second one has since given option to its predecessor.
Past the limitations imposed on their ambitions, racialized folks equivalent to girls face inequalities within the distribution of roles in municipal councils, which generally tend to perpetuate gender or racial stereotypes. Thus, girls are incessantly in command of social problems, youngsters or households, and racial individuals are entrusted with the struggle in opposition to discrimination or younger folks, particularly originally in their careers.
This case is in the end in particular damaging for racialized girls, who’re most commonly excluded from key delegations – municipal finance, city making plans and construction – that are typically entrusted to the primary deputy mayors. On this context, a lot of them specific in interviews the sensation that they’re thought to be “decorations” or “female guarantees”.
Political dedication marked through the revel in of inequality
Every other remark, the restrictions imposed at the ambitions of girls and racialized individuals are just one side of discrimination that the latter face in politics. If the significance of sexism is referred to now, racism additionally has an have an effect on on occupation paths in politics. This may inspire a want to become involved, slowing get right of entry to to candidacy and inspiring attrition all over tenure.
First, racialized folks incessantly testify to the position that the revel in of discrimination has of their politicization and their want for dedication. Some have made bettering the illustration of working-class citizens a marketing campaign factor, committing to citizen lists, with the enhance of neighborhood activists. Shall we see this kind of listing in towns equivalent to Aubervilliers or Blanc-Mesnil, within the 2008, 2014 and 2020 elections.
Others, extra a large number of, had been referred to their alleged origins or belonging to a visual minority all over their tenure, occasionally in a good method. In Ganji, as an example, the West Indian press praised the election of mayor Rolin Cranoli in 2019, making the councilor conscious about the symbolic nature of his shuttle. Alternatively, maximum incessantly those duties stem from atypical racism, because the consultant of a left-wing municipality testified in an interview:
“Ah, it is subtle, it is very subtle. At first we doubt, saying: “It isn’t conceivable.” They scratch your title after which ask you to copy it; whilst you say a sentence, you might be requested to copy it two or thrice; we come to invite you if you’re doing Ramadan. »
In spite of everything, some are the objective of violent assaults, equivalent to Azedin Taybi, mayor of Staines since 2014: far-right activists attempted to go into the city corridor after the councilor publicly denounced racist insults and demise threats directed at him.
Because the municipal elections in March 2026 way, projects deal with those problems. Activists of the native meeting received the outlet of sure left-wing lists for applicants from working-class settlements. The Democratiser los angeles politicue collective defends the establishment of social parity in politics with the intention to right kind the exclusion of the operating category.
Those problems are in particular acute within the Seine-Saint-Denis, the place lists led through girls and folks of colour will conflict in lots of towns. Whilst get right of entry to to native political illustration is more difficult than ever for the operating category, girls and folks of colour at the moment are confronted with the tricky activity of politicizing the revel in of the glass ceiling and discrimination with the intention to become the native political recreation.
This text is according to analysis performed through Marie-Helene Backue, Jeanne Demoulin, Claudette Lafaie, Helene Haztfeld, Violette Arnoulet and Yasmina Driss. This gave upward push to the e-book: Decided on Other people from Fashionable Suburbs, “A Life of Ideas”, Presses Universitaires de France, 2026.
