In the 20th century, many public Black figures (James Baldwin, Josephine Baker) moved to France to escape rampant discrimination in America. Today, many conservatives support a color-blind ideology that has found its purest manifestation in France and French law. Recent scholarship has explored the difference between contemporary American racial policy, which has grudgingly tolerated race conscious remedies to racial discrimination, and the French system which has steadfastly rejected them. What does the French experience tells us about the efficacy of the color-blind ideology? Or, to put it another way, should we do as conservatives say and abandon the American system for the “French model” of race relations?