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by aerosmile 1919 days ago
I am not implying that France had some hidden motives in passing this legislature. But WW2 trauma is preventing them from making policy decisions that would benefit the society today. Here's just one very practical example of that: in the below WSJ article [0], it's claimed that the lack of ethnic statistics has contributed to housing and employment discrimination, among many other problems.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/coronavirus-fran...
3 comments
908B64B197 1919 days ago
They need ethnic statistics to prove that residents of denser neighborhood working essential jobs (that can't be done remotely for the most part) are disproportionately affected by COVID?

I'm sure the far right in France would love to have ethnic statistics, especially for crime rates... it's the left that historically pushed back against it.

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remh 1919 days ago
Agreed. I'm not defending the lack of ethnic statistics. Just offering the perspective from the other side. I strongly believe you cannot improve things you do not measure.
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malandrew 1919 days ago
> the lack of X statistics has contributed to problem Y

The term "contribution" implies active impact on a problem. It comes from the Latin "contribuere" which means to "bring together" or to "add". If X contributes to Y, you should be able to measure the contribution, but there's no way to measure the impact of something that never existed in the first place.

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