SOS Racisme

Long-time sponsor of the association.

“Touche pas à mon pote“: its slogan written across a yellow hand, SOS Racism remains the symbol of antiracism that emerged in opposition to the rise of the Front National in the 1980s. Created in 1984 following the Marche des Beurs (”Walk of the French Arabs”), the association is inseparable from the Mitterrand years, with its socialist leaders of Trotskyite background, Harlem Désir and Julien Dray. The first avenues for a reflection: urban planning and the role of schools in discrimination. The organization denounced the forming of ghettos in the suburbs. It provided evidence from carrying out tests. SOS Racisme is against positive discrimination but in favor of anonymous resumés, and managed to get sentences passed on nightclubs, restaurants and real estate companies for discrimination according to appearance. Moving on to the issue of the Middle East, the association called for a peace process during the second Intifada. In 2006, it defended the publication of the cartoons featuring Mohammed from the newspaper Jyllands-Posten in Charlie Hebdo. And in 2007, with the newspapers Libération and Charlie Hebdo it organized a meeting at the Zénith in Paris against the Mariani amendment providing for the use of DNA tests for family reunification. Carla Bruni took part in that.