To state-owned France-Televisions for a seminar on representation of minorities in the media - with particular reference to the 2005 riots and the lessons to be learned. I went as someone with experience of the British media - especially the BBC -- and had my spiel all prepared about how the BBC had embarked on a massive recruitment campaign ten years ago of blacks and Asians; how this was broadly accepted by journalists and the country as a whole; and how the visibility of minority faces on the broadcast media played an important tole in fostering integration etc etc. In France a lot was made in the wake of the riots of the need for more black and Arab journalists, and I was expecting my point to be the main issue for discussion at the seminar. After all every year more and more journalists are entering the work place -- and 99 percent of them are midle-class whites. I know because I teach them. But no. The seminar did not seem to want to go down this road. Instead there was a lot of talk about not portraying stereotypes, the need for positive stories from the banlieues etc. All worthy stuff, but I got the impression that so-called positive discrimination remains taboo. They really did not want to talk about it. It is too sensitive an issue. Which is a great pity.