Felix Wu faces an uphill fight in Sunday’s election to govern a neighborhood that includes this city’s Chinatown. As his name suggests, Wu is of Chinese descent and, indeed, he says he’s running to represent the Asians of the 13th “arrondissement,” or district.

This might sound routine to Americans used to immigrants breaking into politics through their ethnic identity. But in France, Wu is seen as a revolutionary. Or more accurately, a counterrevolutionary.

For the more than 200 years since the French Revolution, this country has declared that distinctions of race or creed must be submerged for the good of La France. Everyone is French, so no one campaigns as a representative of, say, Portuguese, Italian, African or Chinese heritage voters. The French are so committed to the idea of equality that it is against the law to survey the population about its racial, ethnic and religious origins.

No sooner had Wu, a 36-year-old restaurateur, begun plastering campaign posters of his boyish face across Chinatown than opponents accused him of being a “communitarian,” a kind of political curse word in French culture for organising along cultural lines. Wu dismisses such a derogatory characterisation. “The concept that we are all equal is denying the fact that we are all different,” he said. “When a person looks at me on the street, he will see an Asian, not a French, even if I feel very French. So why should I try to hide the reality?”

Despite the burgeoning population of immigrants and their children from North Africa and Muslim countries, France has no black or Arab mayors and no minorities representing mainland France in the National Assembly. Even suburbs with high concentrations of voters of African, Arab or Chinese descent are run by the Franco-French.

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