Geographic discrimination in hiring: 500 companies commit to specific targets

"We do not have access to the same opportunities, both when we come from a very rural community and when we come from a priority urban policy area," the minister in charge of the fight against discrimination reminded on BFM Business, seeing it as a "geography of injustice" concerning "42% of the French."

"We risk setting aside 42% of the skills," she warned.

The charter, which emerged from the "Talents of France" campaign launched in early 2026, contains "quantified objectives to develop territorial diversity, open up more access to internships and apprenticeships, strengthen mentoring and fight more effectively against discrimination," the ministry explains in a press kit.

The signatory companies commit in particular to achieving "a minimum of 8% of recruitment from priority neighborhoods and rural areas" and "progressively reaching 15% of internships and apprenticeships occupied by young people from these areas".

They will also have to "facilitate access to a first professional interview for young graduates from these territories, by offering comprehensive support" with coaching or solutions adapted to remoteness, such as "video conferencing or travel expenses".

Internally, they will work to "deploy training actions for recruiters and managers, structure alert systems" or establish "assessment tools, including questionnaires, to better understand the experience of employees".

According to the ministry, the first signatories are 500 leading companies, which "represent nearly one million employees", and several collectives, "which together represent 20 million employees".

"We have companies that are making commitments, not on a declaration of principle (but) on quantified commitments, which changes the game considerably, with annual monitoring of these commitments," boasted Ms. Bergé, who will present this initiative to the ministry on Tuesday morning, an initiative nurtured by several months of work by working groups in the territories.

As part of this campaign, the ministry launched a "testing" at the beginning of the year with the sending of 16.000 CVs responding to 4.000 real job offers in 20 sectors of activity.

The assessment, initially planned for June, is now expected in September, but "the first results" show, according to Ms. Bergé, that "unfortunately" discrimination "persists" based on the origin, address or gender of candidates.

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.