PARIS, Nov 23: The Moulin Rouge, the legendary Paris nightclub, known to tourists around the world, has been condemned by a French judge to a Euros 10,000 ($10,000) fine, for having engaged in racial discrimination.

Late in 2000, a 20-year old Black African, Abdoulaye Marega, had replied to a classified advertisement in which the Moulin Rouge sought servers, only to realize that he could not be hired by the Moulin Rouge because, in its 40 years’ history, it had never had African floor employees, those in direct contact with clientele.

Mr Marega, who is Senegalese, could have worked in the kitchens of the Moulin Rouge - where those who prepare food are 100 percent Black - but when he insisted that he was interested in a job as a floor waiter, he was told by the nightclub’s employment director that he couldn’t be hired because he’d indicated in his application that he spoke “neither Spanish nor English.”

The woman who refused to hire Mr Marega, Michele Beuzit, was herself fined Euros 3000 ($3000) for having made the decision not to offer him the job of waiter. The Moulin Rouge says that since the incident, which goes back two years, it has now two hired two coloured floor personnel.