French activist Féris Barkat, 24, has called for the dismantling of a system that he says places white people at the top of a social hierarchy.

Speaking during an interview with demonstrators, Barkat described that hierarchy as the target of a collective effort to bring about change. His remarks presented racial inequality as a matter of how society is organised, rather than identifying a particular policy for reform.

Barkat is a lecturer at Sorbonne University and a member of the Palais de Tokyo’s endowment fund. The remarks supplied do not set out which institutions he believes sustain the hierarchy or what practical measures he advocates to dismantle it.