July 7 (Bloomberg) -- Karim Amellal says Axa SA is right when it says race-related statistics could help efforts to diversify staff and cut discrimination in the work place.

``Knowing who is part of your company, acknowledging the added-value diversity represents, that's the next step,'' said the 27-year-old Frenchman of Algerian origin, who teaches diversity management at Paris's elite Sciences Po University that counts President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin among its graduates, Amellal is also the author of an essay entitled, ``Discriminate Me.''

Eight months after the November 2005 riots shed light on France's failure to combat discrimination against, and create economic opportunities, for its inhabitants of African or Arab origin, Axa, Casino Guichard-Perrachon SA and other French companies are struggling to do their part to address the issue. A study published this week shows they may not win government support for their plans to collect race-based information.

France has historically not gathered data by ethnic origin or religion, a practice long regarded as a bulwark of the republic's concept of ``equality'' among its citizens. The study by the government's High Authority against Discrimination, or Halde, wants to keep it that way, disappointing companies.

``We want to see equality and diversity improve in France,'' said Mansour Zoberi, who promotes diversity at Casino, France's fifth-largest supermarket chain. ``There are no statistics, nothing tangible. So you might say there is discrimination, but you cannot even pin it down.''

Changing Mentalities

The riots last year were confined to poor suburbs that mostly house immigrants and their families and have youth unemployment rates as high as 40 percent, more than four times the national average. A November study by the state demographics institute, INED, said people of North African descent in France are 80 percent more likely to be unemployed than French people.

``The authorities are backward looking, they are late and stubborn, they don't want to move ahead,'' Amellal said in a phone interview. ``But walls are going to crumble.''

In May 2006, the state body Halde, headed by Louis Schweitzer, former chief executive officer of Renault SA, published a report based on people's complaints. The study showed that 40 percent of all discrimination in France is based on a person's origin and 45 percent happens at the work place.

``If someone refuses to work with a black person, and this still happens, then no doubt there is still a long way to go,'' Claude Bebear, Axa's chairman and France's pro-diversity guru, said in a telephone interview. ``Mentalities will take more time to change than regulations, and this is what we need to work on now. Business mentalities can lead the change,'' he said.

`Losing Time'

Companies are trying to determine how diversified they are. Casino was the first company to reach an agreement with the state, allowing it to measure its workforce's diversity by studying their surnames and therefore there supposed origins.

Axa wants to give a questionnaire to its new employees, asking them about their origins. Axa, Europe's second-largest insurer, has been waiting for months to move ahead, coming up against legal bans. The company aims to recruit 500 insurance brokers a year from the 20,000 anonymous CVs it receives yearly.

``We're loosing time on this subject,'' said Cyrille de Montgolfier, the head of Axa's human resources in France. ``New policies are deployed, but with no figures to measure their results, they remain mere speeches,'' he said.

De Montgolfier said companies should mirror their clients and therefore be diverse. He said there is a need for businesses to have better background knowledge on their employees.

Take Initiative

``The most important steps toward more diversity have to be taken by the companies themselves, they should be at the forefront,'' Bebear said, arguing that the state's role should be minore. ``New laws will only make it more complicated,'' he said, pushing the companies to be self-reliant.

APC Recrutement, a recruitment agency, works with companies like L'Oreal SA, Gaz de France SA and SNCF and has placed more than 90 people from poor suburbs in mid-to-high-level jobs since its creation in April 2005.

``We're not doing some social work here with kids of immigrants,'' Said Hammouche, 33, the Chief Executive Officer of APC, said on the telephone. ``We're offering CVs of qualified people who, for the past 30 years, have been set aside because of their origins and where they lived,'' he said.

Since October 2004, more than 300 French companies, including Total SA, Peugeot-Citroen SA, L'Oreal, Pinault's PPR SA and Renault signed a ``Diversity Charter'' promoted by Bebear. The charter commits them to ``seek to reflect the diversity of French society'' in their hiring policies. So far, they have not been able to gauge the impact of their policies as the law bans such measures.

A National Demographics Institute study published on July 1 showed that two-third of the 1,327 responding employees and students in companies including Axa, L'Oreal, Adecco and at universities were comfortable providing information on their ethnic origins anonymously for census and companies' personnel data collection.

``Reticence to declare your origins and race is much more moderate than anything we could have expected,'' said Martin Clement who completed the study for INED.

Last Updated: July 7, 2006 05:19 EDT