PARIS — European government officials and business representatives have poured scorn on a request from the United States State Department for companies to drop diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) measures.
Ministers from France and Belgium pushed back strongly on the effort by the Trump administration to spread its anti-DEI policies, which have taken aim at universities, companies, government contractors and security services worldwide.
“It is out of the question that we will prevent our business from promoting additional social progress [and] social rights,” said French Minister for Gender Equality Aurore Bergé in an interview with BFMTV Sunday. “Thankfully, a lot of French companies don’t plan to change their policies.”
“We have a culture of non-discrimination in Europe and we must continue that,” Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Jan Jambon said Sunday evening on the French-language TV channel RTL-TVi. “We have no lessons to learn from the boss of America.”
Several French companies received a letter — first reported by Les Echos and obtained by POLITICO — requiring them to certify that they don’t implement DEI or positive discrimination programs.
“If you do not agree to sign this document, we would appreciate it if you could provide detailed reasons, which we will forward to our legal teams,” reads the request sent to French companies and signed by Stanislas Parmentier, the contracting officer at the U.S. embassy in Paris.
Companies in other EU countries including Italy, Spain and Belgium reportedly received similar requests.
“American interference in the inclusion policies of French companies, as well as unjustified threats of tariffs, are unacceptable,” France’s trade ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
The office of the economy minister, Eric Lombard, said the minister would raise the issue with his American counterparts.
“This practice reflects the values of the new American government. They are not ours,” Lombard’s office said in a statement on Friday.
France’s business milieu is also unmoved. “We can’t bend, we have values, rules, we have to respect them,” Patrick Martin, the president of France’s influential business lobby Medef, told the LCI broadcaster on Sunday.
The spat is raising transatlantic tensions just days ahead of a new escalation in the ongoing transatlantic trade war. Trump’s administration has threatened to announce a new massive wave of tariffs on April 2.
This article has been updated.
