PARIS (AP) — Lawmakers in France's lower house of parliament on Thursday approved a bill that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair.
The bill's authors hope the groundbreaking bill sends a message of support to Black people and others who have faced hostility in the workplace and beyond because of their hair.
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French Deputy of the National Assembly, Olivier Serva, centre, is photographed during an interview with The Associated Press, at the Nationial Assembly, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
PARIS (AP) — Lawmakers in France's lower house of parliament on Thursday approved a bill that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair.
A customer checks his hairstyle in a hairdressing salon, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
French Deputy of the National Assembly, Olivier Serva is photographed during an interview with The Associated Press, at the Nationial Assembly, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Hair are on the floor in a hairdressing salon, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Hairdresser, Aude Livoreil-Djampou, right, laughs with one of the staff in her hairdressing salon, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
A customer has her hair trimmed, in a hairdressing salon, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
French Deputy of the National Assembly, Olivier Serva, centre, is photographed during an interview with The Associated Press, at the Nationial Assembly, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
A customer waits for a hair treatment, in a hairdressing salon, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
French Deputy of the National Assembly, Olivier Serva is photographed during an interview with The Associated Press, at the Nationial Assembly, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
A customer has his hair shampooed in a hairdressing salon, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
But the measure still faces a long road ahead. It goes to the Senate next, where it could face opposition.
While only 50 of the National Assembly’s 577 lawmakers were on hand for the vote, they overwhelmingly backed the bill in a 44-2 vote. There were four abstentions.
Supporters of the measure outside parliament were overjoyed that the bill made it to the legislative body.
“It's about time," exclaimed Estelle Vallois, a 43-year-old consultant getting her short, coiled hair cut in a Paris salon, where the hairdressers are trained to handle all types of hair — a rarity in France. "Today, we’re going even further toward taking down these barriers of discrimination."
The draft law echoes similar legislation in more than 20 U.S. states. The bill was proposed by Olivier Serva, a French lawmaker from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. He says that if it eventually becomes law, it would make France the first country in the world to recognize discrimination based on hair at a national level.
“This is a great step forward for our country,” Serva said after the vote. “France has done itself proud.”
The bill would amend existing anti-discrimination measures in the labor code and criminal code to explicitly outlaw discrimination against people with curly and coiled hair or other hairstyles perceived as unprofessional, as well as bald people. It doesn't specifically target race-based discrimination, though that was the primary motivation for the bill.
“People who don’t fit in Eurocentric standards are facing discrimination, stereotypes and bias,” Serva, who is Black, told The Associated Press.
Leftist parties and members of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party Renaissance have supported the bill, which was enough to get it through the National Assembly. The bill is now headed for the conservative-dominated Senate, where it will likely face opposition from right-wing and far-right lawmakers who see it as an effort to import U.S. concepts about race and racial discrimination to France.
In the United States, 24 states have adopted a version of the CROWN Act — which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair — banning race-based hair discrimination in employment, housing, schools and in the military. U.S. federal legislation passed in the House in 2022, but Senate Republicans blocked it a month later.
Opponents of the French bill say France’s legal framework already offers enough protection to people facing discrimination over their natural Afro hair, braids, cornrows or locs.
Authors of the bill disagree. One example they cite is a Black French flight attendant who sued Air France after he was denied access to a flight because of his braids and was coerced into wearing a wig with straight hair. Aboubakar Traoré won his case in 2022 after a decade-long judiciary battle. But the court ruled that he wasn't discriminated against over his hair, but because he is a man, since his female counterparts were allowed to wear braids.
France doesn't collect official data about race, because it follows a universalist vision that doesn’t differentiate citizens by ethnic groups, which makes it difficult to measure race-based hair discrimination.
Advocates of the bill hope it addresses Black French people's long struggle to embrace their natural hair.
Aude Livoreil-Djampou, a hairdresser and mother of three mixed-race children, said that while some people view the draft law as frivolous, it's about something deeper.
“It’s not only a hair issue. It will give strength to people to be able to answer, when asked to straighten their hair, they can say: ’No, this is not legal, you cannot expect that from me, it has nothing to do with my professional competence.'”
Djampou-Livoreil’s salon takes care of all kinds of clients, from those with straight hair to those with tight curls.
“It’s very moving to have a 40-year-old woman, sometimes in a very high position, finally embracing her natural beauty. And it happens every day,” she said.
Salon customer Vallois hopes that her 5-year-old daughter will live in the future in a society that doesn’t stigmatize their hair.
“When I was younger, I remember lamenting the lack of salons and even hair products (for frizzy hair) — there was a time when, unfortunately, we had to use products designed for European hair and not adapted to our hair. I’m glad, today, that things are more accessible and there’s change,” she said.
“There’s no reason to be ashamed of who you are, whether it’s your hair or even the fact that you don’t have any!”
A customer checks his hairstyle in a hairdressing salon, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
A customer checks his hairstyle in a hairdressing salon, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
French Deputy of the National Assembly, Olivier Serva is photographed during an interview with The Associated Press, at the Nationial Assembly, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Hair are on the floor in a hairdressing salon, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Hairdresser, Aude Livoreil-Djampou, right, laughs with one of the staff in her hairdressing salon, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
A customer has her hair trimmed, in a hairdressing salon, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
French Deputy of the National Assembly, Olivier Serva, centre, is photographed during an interview with The Associated Press, at the Nationial Assembly, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
A customer waits for a hair treatment, in a hairdressing salon, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
French Deputy of the National Assembly, Olivier Serva is photographed during an interview with The Associated Press, at the Nationial Assembly, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
A customer has his hair shampooed in a hairdressing salon, in Paris, Wednesday, March 27, 2024. French lawmakers are debating a bill Thursday that would ban discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of someone's hair. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
WASHINGTON (AP) — It was Donald Trump who bestowed the “MAGA Mike Johnson” nickname on the House speaker the day he won the gavel.
It is the Republican speaker himself who is proving whether it sticks.
Johnson survived an ouster vote this week by one of Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress, far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, his job secured only after House Democrats turned out in force to put an end to the GOP chaos, for now.
But the oversized role Trump played in propping up Johnson cannot be understated — or relied upon to save the speaker again.
In fact, the indicted former president who has been known to flip his friends into foes warned that while Republicans shouldn’t be voting to remove Johnson, “At some point, we may very well be, but this is not the time.”
The outcome puts on display the fragility of the unexpected but strategically beneficial alliance that Trump and Johnson have formed ahead of the November election when both hope to be returned to power — the Republican president in the White House and the loyal foot soldier in Congress.
“Seems like they’re on the same page, and I think that’s great,” said lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who was a key figure in Trump's efforts to challenge the 2020 election.
Johnson has worked diligently to align himself with the former president, the conservative Christian setting aside his once critical views of the presidential contender to present himself as a chief implementer of the Trump Republican Party’s Make America Great Again agenda on Capitol Hill.
Barely six months on the job, since Johnson replaced the ousted then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the new leader has dashed multiple times to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, securing crucial support, including at a glitzy Republican National Committee gala this past weekend.
When Trump invited Johnson to the stage to say a few words, the speaker praised the former president as the “strongman” the country needs in the White House. Trump and Johnson are cordial, according to a person with knowledge of their relationship, and granted anonymity to discuss it.
“He’s doing a great job,” Trump said alongside Johnson after another visit last month, ahead of the House vote to approve a national security package with Ukraine funding that Greene warned would lead to a vote on Johnson's ouster.
In return for his seal of approval, Trump is increasingly able to rely on the speaker’s high-profile standing to legitimize his relentless attacks on the U.S. election process, the judicial system and the multiple criminal cases against him, including the federal indictment for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
“All these cases need to be dropped,” says Johnson, a constitutional lawyer, who as the House speaker is second in the line of presidential succession. “President Trump has done nothing wrong. ... It has to stop.”
Trump is already pre-emptively contesting the 2024 election as potentially rigged before the first ballots are cast, and Johnson, who helped lead legal challenges to Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, is in a powerful position to again question the legitimacy of the outcome.
Asked this week if he believed the 2020 election was legitimate and if he would stand by the new state-certified results this fall, Johnson shook his head in frustration, and demurred. “What we're talking about today is the 2024 election, nobody can go back and relitigate what happened in 2020,” he said.
The joint venture between Trump and Johnson was in clear focus Wednesday ahead of the House action when the speaker, flanked on the Capitol steps by a who’s who of the former president’s advisers, announced new legislation that would require proof of citizenship before Americans are eligible to vote.
Johnson had promised Trump a voting-citizenship bill during one of the Mar-a-Lago visits, and the unveiling of it alongside Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s hardline immigration policies, and others showed just how embedded the former president’s Make America Great Again movement has become in the House speaker's agenda.
Election experts said there is scant evidence that non-citizens vote in U.S. elections, and past reviews including one pursued by the Trump administration have not produced significant cases of wrongdoing.
Nevertheless, Johnson and the others argued without proof that immigrants are being brought into the U.S. to illegally vote. The legislation can be seen as groundwork for the challenges Trump may pose in the aftermath of the November election.
“If this bill does not become law, then Joe Biden and Democrats will have engineered one of the greatest interferences in any democratic nation in the history of the world,” Miller said outside the Capitol.
Still, the legislative push did not placate Greene, who hours later tried and failed to remove the speaker from office.
Colleagues booed in protest. An overwhelming majority, 359-43, kept Johnson in his job, for now.
“I’m proud of what I did today,” Greene said afterward on the Capitol steps.
It’s the second time in a matter of months that Republicans have worked to oust their own speaker, an unheard of level of party upheaval with a move rarely seen in U.S. history.
Without Democratic help, Johnson would have certainly faced a more dismal outcome. All told, 196 and 163 Democrats voted to table Greene's motion. But 11 Republicans voted to proceed with the effort, more than it took to remove McCarthy last fall, a first in U.S. history.
Democrats have also made clear their help was for this moment alone, and not a promise of an enduring partnership for Johnson’s survival.
“Our decision to stop Marjorie Taylor Greene from plunging the country into further chaos is rooted in our commitment to solve problems,” said Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., after the vote.
“The only thing we ask of our House Republican colleagues is for traditional Republicans to further isolate the extreme MAGA Republican wing of the GOP,” said Jeffries, who is in line to become speaker if Democrats win control of the House in the fall. “We need more common sense and less chaos.”
Asked about a future motion to vacate the speaker, Jeffries said, “Haven’t given it a thought.”
By relying on Democratic backing, Johnson risks inciting more criticism that he is insufficiently loyal to the party.
And the threat still lingers — any single lawmaker can call up the motion to vacate the speaker.
Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Michelle Price, Stephen Groves, Mary Clare Jalonick and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters about requiring American citizenship to vote in national elections, as they introduce the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., joined by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speaks to reporters after she tried and failed to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., joined by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speaks to reporters after she tried and failed to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., joined by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speaks to reporters after she tried and failed to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson, her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., joined by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speaks to reporters after she tried and failed to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson, her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks to reporters after she tried and failed to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., joined by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speaks to reporters after she tried and failed to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., leaves a meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, heads to a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. Rep. Good has criticized Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., for continuing her push to oust Speaker Mike Johnson from his position. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., leaves a meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., whom she has vowed to remove from his leadership post, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., leaves a meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., whom she has vowed to remove from his leadership post, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., joined by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speaks to reporters after she tried and failed to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks to reporters after she tried and failed to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks during a news conference amid threats that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, is threatening to oust Johnson from his leadership post, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
