"We say immigrants are our friends. Hands off!"

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Paris featured many of Europe's leading rock groups and entertainment personalities. Three hundred thousand youth attended, in a powerful and often emotional display of solidarity with the victims of racism in France and the world over.

At the Paris national headquarters of SOS Racism, Harlem Desir told me about the origins of his organization. He explained:

"SOS was formed in response to a rise in racist activity in France. In addition to increased and overt racist violence, there is widespread discrimination in housing, education, healthcare, and employment. With the formation of the National Front, the party of racist politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, the issue of racism is today part of the national debate in France."

Racists organize in Marseilles The National Front, with its campaign to "Keep France for the French," has responded to SOS's insignia with one of its own, "Hands Off My People"-an appeal to maintain the purity of the French nation not too unlike that of the Nazis to maintain the "purity of the Aryan race."

The National Front received 10 percent of the national vote in the last national elections and 25 percent in some cities like Marseille and Toulouse.

Desir continued:

"When the National Front organized to demand that the Marseille city government expel immigrants from the city last month, 140 anti-racist groups responded with a mass solidarity demonstration of 20,000 on June 13.

"A growing portion of the French media promote a political climate that associates immigrants with criminal activity. The victims of racism are portrayed as. responsible for France's mounting social problems.

"In this atmosphere, racist groups are encouraged to vent their hatred against France's immigrants as well as against generation of immigrant youth who were born in France. While they have maintained much of their original culture and traditions, they consider themselves French and reject efforts to exclude them from the country or to otherwise treat them as less than equals."

The rise in racist sentiment has not gone unnoticed in France's major daily newspaper. In a front-page editorial last year, following the barroom murder of an Algerian worker, Le Monde observed the following:

"In the France of the '80s, some taboos are being lifted, some prohibitions bidding against immigration, a racist refrain has been liberated."

Workers' parties default

SOS Racism has been the first in recent years to call attention to and mobilize mass sentiment against the racist climate promoted initially by the far right, but with the tacit support of major circles in France's ruling establishment.

Sadly, this role was not assumed years ago by the major workers' organizations —particularly the Socialist and Communist parties.

In fact, since it assumed power in 1981, the ruling Socialist Party-with the collaboration of the Communist Partyhas set up detention camps for immigrant workers and extradited foreign militants seeking political asylum in France.

These parties have the capacity to bring decisive weight into the anti-racist struggle to guarantee that the working class itself rights