I suppose it is one of the most unsolvable questions. My OH and I spend a great deal of time discussing gender and race prejudices. We have both globe trotted enough to have seen both elsewhere and certainly racial discrimination often tends to manifest itself far more openly than gender.
France is very much like elsewhere. After all of the years since the French left North Africa, the prejudice against 'pieds noirs' is exasperating. The people live in communities but are held on the edge in many cases. People of mixed and unmixed ethnicity from south east Asian, African, Pacific and Caribbean former and present colonies are similarly treated. Occasionally one will appear to be entirely integrated, then another will be treated with absolutely horrendous disrespect. One of the doctors where we go is of African origin and is by far the most popular before the others. At present he is on paternity leave and people leave gifts for his baby and wife at the practice of loyalty, yet another local man is treated like dirt although he is a decent upstanding citizen.
Then the travelling and other recent immigrant/asylum seeking/refugee populations are treated as the worst kind of human dregs. That shocks me. That is France. France is a country where, according to an Institut national d'études démographiques (INED) survey published at the end of 2010, over 70% of French people have seldom travelled more than 100 km from where they were born (with exception of military service for men) and when they do, the majority have spent time in French speaking and cultural environments. Of course, people do relocate increasingly with work and buying retirement homes, etc. One can only surmise how parochial people were prior to this century, therefore the question you were asked was perhaps more relativist than prejudiced. People simply could not imagine being buried anywhere but where generations before them have been, therefore here in France. I doubt it was intended as a nasty form of prejudice, although it sometimes comes across as that.
How does France score in comparison with other countries? Well, the resurgence of nationalism that makes the FN look quite tame in quite a few European states is food for thought. I think that is where we see real prejudices brought out into the open. The French party is moderate compared with not so many years ago and should they find themselves in a governing coalition at any time in the future, may well need to become more moderate still. Other countries have wide, open hardcore nationalism of the kind we should be afraid of. Despite bans for historically obvious reasons, some quite nasty groups are emerging out of what were east Germans until reunification, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs and others who have suffered terribly under foreign nationalist then socialist occupations are now seeing their own very hard edged groups emerging. They may be quite muted in England, but the BNP is still there, and what we have seen in recent news about football games speaks loud.
There is much to be feared. I think there are sometimes stupid people. At the village festival this year, our ex-mayor said something about considering only people with local accents as proper members of the community. That was within earshot of my wife with her Italian accent. She was helping with the crêpes but another woman heard it and said that the man was, after all, only a man. Ironically, his family were Italian immigrants, part of a wave that settled in this commune in the 1920s and 30s, including the family we bought from who are now neighbours. Had he forgotten his parents' accents? With his Italian family name and known family history one would expect him to be cleverer than that, but obviously not. However, I don't think such things are said with malign intent but are more naive than anything. For all of that, being on the receiving end still stings.
For me, where do I go then? My children are dual nationals of the UK and Switzerland, may perhaps spend their lives here henceforth. I have one sister in the UK, whose health suggests I should outlive her anyway. So why send my ashes there? I have said that if Scotland becomes independent in time, which I doubt, then perhaps send a few ashes to be scattered in the Dallas Forest where my ancestors came from. The rest, well to the wind here, so that they can be as dispersed as my life has been. In general I will be as happy to meet my end here as elsewhere and in that respect, I have no prejudice myself.