[Faïza] Guène should have a charmed life, a famous Frenchwoman who embodies her country’s cultural mix. But discrimination in France is so widespread, that even she - a star writer and currently one of the country’s biggest literary exports - is plagued by it. Last year, Guène married in a religious ceremony and the couple looked for a flat to rent near her parents in Pantin. Her husband is black and was born in Ivory Coast. “When people said estate agents were racist, I always told them to stop exaggerating. Then it hit me in the face. Just walking into an estate agent’s office was a nightmare,” she says. She found herself telling her husband to stay at home while she went alone - being north African and having slightly lighter skintone would be “less bad”, she reasoned. When she made bookings to see flats over the phone, the name Mademoiselle Guène didn’t sound “too north African”. But when she arrived at appointments and they saw her, she was not allowed to see the flats. Seven months later, they still had no home. “I’d seen an apartment I liked but heard nothing. Then one of the women from the estate agents’ called and whispered: ‘Look I live with a Moroccan guy, I know it’s not easy. The boss is away. Come in and sign the contract, so at least when she gets back there’s nothing she can do about it.’ I felt like I was stealing it; that it wasn’t legitimate; that I’d got in through a trap door.”

(Via Mr Moo.)

Remember, this is a country that unable to acknowledge its own sordid past:

“France has never taken on its colonial history. It is a big difference with the Anglo-Saxon countries, where post-colonial studies are now in all the universities. We are phenomenally behind the times.”