France: Forced to Call Himself Antoine, Mohamed Recounts Twenty Years of Stolen Identity

At his home in Brittany, Mohamed has kept the remnants of this double life: business cards, trophies, and pay stubs in the name of Antoine. He does not keep them out of pride, but as tangible proof of the discrimination he had to accept in order to survive professionally, reports Le Monde.

The story dates back to 1997. Upon being hired at Intergraph France, the management imposed a brutal change of identity on him. "You will have to change your first name," they told him, considering it impossible to sign major contracts under the name of Mohamed. As a family man and financially constrained, he gave in and became Antoine.

This was followed by two decades of administrative schizophrenia. While his employment contract remained in his real name, everything else - email address, client relations - was falsified. A daily humiliation where even his colleagues were reprimanded by the hierarchy if they dared to call him "Momo".

It was only after his departure in 2017 that he initiated legal proceedings, which he ultimately won on appeal. His former company was ordered to pay him 30,000 euros for discrimination.

But for the 69-year-old retiree, the money does not repair everything. This journey echoes older wounds, those of a child born during the Algerian War, slapped at school for mentioning his vacations in Kabylia. For Mohamed, this managerial requirement remains a symptom of a society where, sixty years after decolonization, minds still struggle to evolve.