1
Making it Hard to Hate:
Responses to Racist Violence in Britain, Germany, and France
Violence against ethnic minorities is nothing new in Europe. Countries across the
continent have long been sites of racist vandalism, assaults and even murders. For much
of the post-war era, these acts were deemed abhorrent, but not especially meaningful. In
spite of occasional public protests and media attention, they generated no more concern
than other serious crimes. When the criminal justice system processed these incidents, it
invoked only the laws and policies established to handle “normal” crime. Legally and
politically speaking, racist violence was considered absolutely ordinary.
All this has changed in the last decade. Racist attacks have a new meaning in
Western democracies. They are no longer viewed simply as generic crimes involving a
victim and a perpetrator. Racist violence is now seen as a moral outrage and a threat to
social cohesion, because it affects not only an individual victim, but also members of the
victim’s group and society as a whole. It is viewed as a force that can divide a nation.
Racist violence has become, in short, extraordinary.
The British, German, and French states have recently stepped up their actions against
racist violence, defined as violence against persons or property motivated by racism,
ethnocentrism, religious intolerance, or xenophobia. Yet in spite of making policies in
the context of an ever-closer European Union, the three countries have not coordinated
their actions in this area. There are significant policy similarities across the countries, but
equally meaningful differences. In relative terms, Britain has focused more of its
energies on reforming the police and the judicial process for prosecuting racially
aggravated offences; Germany has delegated power and resources to civil society groups
Convention