Racism in France spurs youth protest

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French labor leaders head up anti-racist march of 20,000 in Marseilles on June 13. Fourth from left: Alain Krivine, presidential candidate of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionairre (LCR), French section of the Fourth International. Harlem Desir, SOS leader (left), and Jeff Mackler, Socialist Action national secretary, discuss alarming rise of racism in France. SOS is planning a U.S. tour.

racisme PARIS-SOS Racism is a dynamic organization of French youth formed in 1984 to mobilize against right-wing and neofascist efforts to blame France's social problems on its Arab and Black-African immigrant populations. While in France, I spoke with Harlem Desir, a leader of SOS Racism, about his organization.

With 300 local committees across France, SOS Racism has captured the conscience of a new generation of youth who readily identify with the sentiment expressed in the organization's popular insignia badge—a small hand, open-palmed and upraised, with the inscription, "Touche Pas A Mon Pote" ("Hands off my Buddy").

SOS activities range from helping to initiate broadly-sponsored anti-racist demonstrations in local cities to the organization of nationally televised mass anti-racist cultural events.

On June 20, 1987, SOS's third concert in Jews. The racists say immigrants are the enemy. We say they are our friends. Hands off!"

Minute of silence

In response to the March 1985 racist slaying of a young Moroccan, Aziz Madak, SOS Racism organized a nationally observed minute of silence that drew wide support from university and secondary school students and from an impressive layer of trade unionists and factory workers.

On the same day, French schools throughout the country organized what was called "a day of sensitization" during which young people discussed the negative consequences of the rise in racist activity.

Desir explained that SOS had organized several protests against the initial and unsuccessful efforts to modify France's Nationality Code, which today grants automatic citizenship to the children of all immigrants when they attain the age of 18.

While this movement has receded for the moment, the French government has appointed a high-level commission to study possible changes in France's National Code. Desir and other SOS leaders fear that the result could be proposed alterations to the law that would facilitate the deportation of immigrants.

"The situation of French immigrants has changed considerably," Desir observed. "In the past, immigrants came and went, as opposed to the United States, for example, where there is a long tradition of immigrants making their new country their new home."

continued, freed—the racism of words is passing henceforth to one of acts. Inside the trend of xenophobic agitation, of competitive FLEAL champions the rights of the victims of racism and discrimination.

But with the default of the traditional mass workers' organizations, the road has been opened for reactionary movements to divert attention from the real cause of the decline in the standard of living of the French people: the attacks initiated by the capitalist class.

As the French capitalists, like their American counterparts, drive to reduce the standard of living of the working class to increase their profit margins, they look for every opportunity to place the blame for the misery they create elsewhere. The easiest scapegoat has always been those who are least able to resist-the most oppressed.

SOS Racism has stepped into this political void. It has demonstrated that the great majority of the French people reject racism and are prepared to mobilize in defense of basic democratic rights. It has demonstrated that the ranks of the Socialist and Communist parties are prepared to enter the anti-racist battle.