In France, study shows virus hit African immigrants hardest
LE PECQ, France (AP) — Death rates among immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa doubled in France and tripled in the Paris region at the height of France's coronavirus outbreak, according to a study from the French government's statistics agency released Tuesday.
The INSEE agency's findings are the closest France has come yet to acknowledging with numbers the virus's punishing and disproportionate impact on the country's Black immigrants and the members of other systemically overlooked minority groups.
The study was the first in France to cross-reference deaths that occurred in March and April, when intensive care units were swamped with COVID-19 patients, with the regions of origin of the people who died. By highlighting dramatic increases in deaths among immigrants born in Africa and Asia, the research helps fill some of the gaps in France's understanding of its minority communities.
The topic has become an increasingly hot-button issue for French administrators in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the death of George Floyd. French researchers hailed the study as an important step but also said it only begins to scratch the surface of how the pandemic is impacting France's minorities, who often live in crowded, underprivileged neighborhoods,.
French Black rights activists have long pushed for more and better ethnic-specific data. Officially, the French republic is colorblind, refusing to categorize or count people by race or ethnicity. For critics, that guiding philosophy has made the state oblivious to discrimination and put minorities at additional risk during the pandemic.
“I’m delighted, and I know colleagues are delighted, because we have been waiting for this data," Solene Brun, a sociologist specializing in issues of race and inequality, said. "But our enthusiasm is tempered by the fact...
