“Noise and Smell”: Civic Training Requested for ‘Racist’ French Estate Agents

Are French estate agents racist? That is the conclusion reached by the association SOS Racisme, which believes that estate agencies are too complacent when it comes to listening to owners’ requests regarding the ethnic and cultural profile of their potential tenants. This has prompted a response from the government, which intends to make civic training compulsory for estate agents.

A few years ago, in 1991, when he was still mayor of Paris and president of the Gaullist party Rassemblement Pour la République (RPR), Jacques Chirac, who later became president of the French republic, caused a stir at a rally with a shocking statement that has since gone down in history about “noise and smell”—a colourful expression used to describe the nuisance caused by immigrants. Here is what he said at the time, with the frankness that was his trademark:

Our problem is not foreigners, it’s that there are too many of them. How can you expect a French worker who works with his wife and together earns around 15,000 francs to accept seeing a family living next door in his social housing block, crammed together, with a father, three or four wives and twenty kids, earning 50,000 francs in social benefits, without working, of course! Add to that the noise and the smell, and the French worker on the landing goes mad. He goes mad. That’s how it is. And you have to understand that if you were there, you would have the same reaction.

Of course, making such comments today would land you straight in court. But the root of the problem has not changed. If anything, it has worsened.

The organisation SOS Racisme conducted a survey of 198 agencies belonging to the major brands in this sector, posing as a property owner looking for an agency to rent out their property. They had clear instructions: tenants, yes, but if possible, “European-looking” to avoid inconveniences such as “noise and smell” caused by tenants from “other cultures.” According to the association, nearly one in two agencies (48.48%) willingly engaged in this ethnic profiling when adding the property to their catalogue.

Unsurprisingly, this statistic sparked widespread outrage. How can estate agents display such blatant racism and so easily discriminate against poor immigrants looking for housing?

Aurore Bergé, Minister Delegate for the Fight against Discrimination, has therefore decided to introduce compulsory civic training. But is it really necessary? According to the SOS Racisme survey, estate agents are well aware of what is going on. “Each time we called, the agent first reminded us of the legal framework prohibiting any discrimination … before saying that he was prepared to disregard it,” explains the president of the organisation—on condition that no written record of such requests was left.

When contacted, Loïc Cantin, president of the National Real Estate Federation (FNAIM), which represents most of the agencies tested by SOS Racisme, said he was “aware” of the problem. He called for more comprehensive training, extended to more staff. Is this really the solution to curbing discrimination?

In such a situation, indignation is immediate, not to say obligatory.

However, there is one question that deserves to be asked: why do owners prefer to rent to tenants with a European profile who share the same culture? The only acceptable answer is “because they are racist.” They think badly, so they need to be re-educated. But the answer to this forbidden question cannot be unequivocal and simplistic. In this unpleasant and uncomfortable situation of discrimination, it would be fair to look a little deeper to see if the blame might not be shared—just a little—rather than assuming, as the Left tends to do, that the only and universal culprit is the white person, who is necessarily racist, especially when they are fortunate enough to be rich and therefore a property owner.

If landlords are primarily looking for “European profiles,” it may be because they have had to endure inconveniences from tenants from “other cultures.” The basic assumption in a society steeped in Marxism for decades is that the fault necessarily lies with the owner-exploiter. It would never occur to the government to set up training for tenants on French cultural expectations—like the obligation to pay rent, the need not to damage the rented property, or showing respect for common spaces and the peace and quiet of the neighbourhood. In some Haussmann-style buildings in the north and east of Paris, you can see bunches of bananas or boubous (African clothes) hanging to dry in shared stairwells littered with rubbish. People shout loudly to each other from one floor to another, in a manner not only unfamiliar but unacceptable to native French tenants. Lost in this alien environment, some tenants hide away in their homes, double-locking their doors every time they come and go, consoling themselves by saying that at least their rent is not too expensive.

This is not to rejoice in the existence of this discrimination. Rather, it is to ask why it exists and how it can be ended, other than by blaming those who, on the side of landlords or estate agents, are just trying to survive and preserve their property or their quality of life. It is no coincidence that the website Où va ma France? is used by estate agents to secure a choice of accommodation or investment. Blaming estate agents is an easy step. Behind this lies a much more perverse logic: depriving landlords of their choices and the free enjoyment of their property, and tenants of their choice of what kind of community they prefer to reside in.

However, the solutions require a courageous long-term political vision, not yet another politically correct gimmick—online training provided by an organisation such as SOS Racisme, which is also engaged in an avowedly progressive ideological struggle, all funded by public money. Stopping uncontrolled immigration, giving property owners some breathing space, and putting in place effective tools to combat unpaid rent and squatters would be a good start and would avoid fuelling the eternal myth of the dirty white racist.