You’re worth it – if white. L’Oréal guilty of racism
· Cosmetic giant fined for recruitment campaign
· First big French firm to be convicted of racial bias
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Saturday July 7, 2007
The GuardianPart of the cosmetics giant L’Oréal was yesterday found guilty of racial discrimination after it sought to exclude non-white women from promoting its shampoo.
In a landmark case, the Garnier division of the beauty empire, along with a recruitment agency it employed, were fined €30,000 (£20,300) each after they recruited women on the basis of race. The historic ruling – the first time a major company has been found guilty of systematic race discrimination in France – saw a senior figure at the agency given a three-month suspended prison sentence.
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In July 2000, a fax detailing the profile of hostesses sought by L’Oréal stipulated women should be 18 to 22, size 38-42 (UK size 10-14) and “BBR”, the initials for bleu, blanc, rouge, the colours of the French flag. Prosecutors argued that BBR, a shorthand used by the far right, was also a well-known code among employers to mean “white” French people and not those of north African, African and Asian backgrounds.
Christine Cassan, a former employee at Districom, a communications firm acting for Garnier, told the court her clients demanded white hostesses. She said that when she had gone ahead and presented candidates “of colour” a superior in her own company had said she had “had enough of Christine and her Arabs”.
L’Oreal has not been immune to charges of racism in the past:
n the 90s L’Oréal was hit by claims over past links to fascism, anti-semitism and the giving of jobs to Nazi collaborators after the second world war. It went some way to satisfy its critics with a boardroom change and other measures. Liliane Bettencourt, L’Oréal’s major shareholder, is the wealthiest woman in France. Two years ago L’Oréal’s slogan was softened from “Because I’m worth it” to “Because you’re worth it” after concerns in France that the original appeared too money-oriented.
I wonder what Beyonce and the other women of colour who promote L’Oreal in the US have to say about this? She doesn’t seem to mind being changed with a weave and airbrushing and contact lenses into a perfect, albeit darker skinned, simulacrum of the stereotypical US blonde advertising bimbo.
L’Oreal recently bought the Body Shop, which then suddenly popped up with a ‘skin-whitening’ range. I myself have a L’Oreal compact I bought in a ‘grey market’ cosmetic shop – ‘Deep- Whitening’ foundation, labeled as such. It wasn’t meant to be sold in Europe but in Indonesia – because everuone knows or at least the major cosmetic companies would like to make people think that any woman with anything other than perfect alabaster-white skin must want to bleach it.
L’Oreal’s implict and explicit racism is a can of worms Liliane Bettancourt doesn’t want opened, but it’s going to be opened anyway, whether she likes it or not – and the connections with the Nazi collaborationist past: will be brought up again:
A Paris stage designer is suing French cosmetics giant L’Oreal for UKpound 20 million over her Jewish family’s home stolen in Nazi Germany in the Thirties. Most of Monica Waitzfelder’s family were killed by the Nazis in the Second World War. France’s Supreme Court will rule next week on whether L’Oreal, headed by British chief executive Lindsay Owen-Jones, is guilty of acquiring stolen goods by refusing to compensate Waitzfelder, 50, and her mother, Edith Rosenfelder, 81. The case is embarrassing for L’Oreal, maker of Garnier shampoo and Lancome cosmetics, and its biggest shareholder, Liliane Bettencourt. With an UKpound 8 billion stake in the cosmetics giant, she is the wealthiest woman in France. Her husband, Andre, had to step down as head of L’Oreal in 1994 when his pro-Nazi past in France was revealed.
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L’Oreal was founded by Liliane Bettencourt’s father, Eugene Schuller, a French chemist who invented modern hair dye in 1907. Before the Second World War, he financed a fascist movement called La Cagoule (the Hood), which carried out a wave of terrorist attacks on Jews and synagogues in Paris.
Men may think cosmetics aren’t political, just trivial, silly women’s stuff they don’t have to bother with – but cosmetic companies ar giant multinatinals too, and they have an enormous amount of effect on womens’ lives.
Choice of cosmetic company isn’t just about what eyeshadow to use, it’s a political decision too.
