The abandonment of the policies of diversity and inclusion by companies has accelerated in the United States since January 2025. Where does this stampede come from which will not completely spare French companies? Several decrees (Executive Orders) Ignied by Donald Trump oblige companies to give up a whole series of their diversity and inclusion practices: quantitative objectives of diversity in recruitment and promotions, choice of suppliers according to the characteristics of their leaders (sexual orientation, sex, race, etc.), support for affinity groups of employees, evaluation of managers according to their results in terms of diversity.
Companies’ suppliers are also affected and also foreign companies which contract with the federal state or are suppliers of American firms. Administration and government agencies must identify companies that do not comply. Thus, the EEOC (the “Commission for Equal Opportunities for employment”, the equivalent of the defender of rights) sent in March 2025 to twenty large law firms for explanation for their diversity, equity and inclusion policy (DEI), because it would be discriminatory.
For French companies wishing to do business with American firms or the federal state, compliance with new requirements can be achieved without too much difficulty, unlike sex per sex. Indeed, companies are currently set for quantified objectives, in their recruitments or promotions and, above all, quotas are compulsory for boards of directors and management teams.
Trump: The letter that makes French patterns tremble https://t.co/v2qqlungmz
– Les Echos (@lesechos) March 28, 2025
It would be tempting to see in these decisions of Donald Trump a simple racist, homophobic or misogynist back. But, if these considerations are not absent, they do not summarize what happened. Indeed, it was the United States Supreme Court which put an end to positive discrimination for access to universities, in June 2023, based on an ethno-racial criterion. These were recruitments, notably in Harvard. This decision is also imposed on companies and concerns other criteria of discrimination such as sex. Admittedly, the three judges appointed by Donald Trump weighed in the decision of the Supreme Court, but it was predictable because judges had, previously to these appointments, considered that positive discrimination should only be provisional.
Unpopularity and lack of consensus
The questioning of positive discrimination practices is explained by several reasons. First, unpopularity in opinion. The Americans were hostile in 2023 to positive discrimination to return to universities or businesses and they approved the decision of the Supreme Court 68%. In France, we note in polls the same opposition to positive discrimination practices and quotas. The French are attached to equality and less convinced by the search for diversity. Before the Rixan law unanimously voting in December 2021, only a quarter of French people found that the quotas per sex for the management teams were a good idea.
In addition, for decades, companies have justified their policy almost all by the important economic benefits of gender diversity and ethno-racial. However, this justification, carried by some large consulting firms such as McKinsey and resumed for example during the vote of the laws Copé-Zimmermann (January 2011) and Rixain does not make consensus in the scientific community at all. The notion of diversity and the idea that it is a source of profits for all has been central in the justification of positive discrimination for access to American universities. The whole was subsequently imported into France in companies, despite its fragility.
Social origin is decisive
Finally, the definition of action priorities has given the feeling to many employees not to be taken into account. Frequent antisyndicalism in the major firms in the United States, wanting to be various and inclusive. In addition, discrimination due to age, physical appearance or even social origin have not been priorities. On this last aspect, it is time for France to simply respect international texts and inscribes in our law social origin in the criteria of discrimination. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the International Labor Organization (ILO) urges us.
In the United States, for young people born between 1978 and 1992 in modest environments, the effect of social origin on their social mobility increased by 28%, while the “skin color” effect was reduced by 28%. Both have the same probability of staying poor. It is social origin that is decisive.
France Strategy also noted how the parents’ profession determined the salaries of individuals, much more than their national origin. What “the Harvard affair” had precisely revealed to the general public, is how the children of rich have had passers to integrate universities which, at the same time, practiced positive ethno-racial discrimination. These great universities would have been enough to stop favoring students sons of donor or former students, that is to say the wealthy, so that the access of visible minorities is resolved by itself.
A whole research current in the United States looks at understanding the reasons why a backtrack (or backlash) So violent occurred and how could we avoid it. The rise of populism is in particular the fruit of policies to fight against discrimination poorly designed, poorly justified, not very inclusive and misunderstood.
