Alain Dolium is almost an oxymoron: He's a black French politician. A businessman and candidate for France's National Assembly in 2012, Dolium is indeed a rare breed. Despite the country's rich mix of whites, blacks from Africa and the Caribbean, and an Arab-Muslim population of more than 5 million, the French political establishment is almost exclusively white.

There is currently just one black elected official representing a mainland constituency in France's National Assembly, and no nonwhite mayors or other local elected officials in the nation of 63 million. Dolium, a businessman whose parents are from the French Caribbean, is an outspoken critic of France's virtual taboo against discussions of race and racism. "We have a giant hypocrisy," he said in an interview with The Root. "People who bring up race issues are seen as anti-republic.”

Yet, says Dolium, social, political and economic power is concentrated in one community (France's white majority). One reason, he says, is a mind-set that defines France firmly as it once was. "France has created an imaginary country. We still refer to 'our ancestors, the Gauls,' " he says. "The stream feeding France -- the Maghreb, Africa and Antilles -- is rejected by the French."

Dolium, 43, was born in Paris and raised in the industrial suburb of Malakoff. He attended the Ecole Supérieur de Commerce in Amiens, north of Paris, and graduate school in Montreal. He is an entrepreneur: CEO and co-founder of Obad, a mobile marketing company with offices in New York and Paris. He is a member of Mouvement Démocrate, France's centrist third party, popularly known as MoDem, and has been put forward as the head of the party's candidate list for the Paris region in next year's elections. If MoDem ends up winning -- or, more likely, forms a coalition with the winning party -- Dolium could be a candidate for a cabinet post.

Not surprisingly, some pundits and media have referred to Dolium as the "French Obama." He rejects the label as a trap, an attempt to reduce his candidacy to his color, rather than addressing his political positions. Dolium says that the French political elite are not ready for diversity -- although he believes that ordinary French citizens will vote for a black candidate.