Let‘s just imagine, for the sake of argument, that everybody will accept that this situation was not created because of any considerations for race. What will happen next?

This: social media will go wild and accuse Air France of misogyny, because they moved a WOMAN!

Indeed, the absolutely right thing would have been to shut up that over-entitled chap who thought that the middle seat was his and tell him to either stop complaining or move himself if he didn’t want to have anyone between himself and his son (the kind of thing all of us do when selecting a window an an aisle seat for ourselves and our travel partner, hoping that the middle seat will stay empty because of status or just luck - and then ending up moving when someone turns up who has been assigned the middle seat).

But then they found another solution for the lady, which I understand wasn’t less comfortable for her than the middle seat the crew initially assigned her to. So she shouldn’t act over-entitled either, shut up, and accept the new seat.

By the way, what would have happened if a white man would have to be moved to an empty middle seat because of non-functioning IFE, find himself between a black mother and her daughter, who then complained about not wanting him there? Could he have claimed racism? Don’t think so.

Thus, this has nothing to do with racism. It has to do with over-entitlement first and foremost of that chap wanting a free middle seat.