Muslims and Jews in France: History of a Conflict by Maud S. Mandel

Author:Maud S. Mandel
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: kindle123
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2014-01-05T05:00:00+00:00

SOS Racisme and the Invention of Pluriculturalism

SOS racisme was born in fall 1984 to celebrate and defend interethnic France. The Socialist party, eager to capitalize on the energy of the Beur Movement, encouraged the creation of associations that would connect with its own bodies and attract potential voters. Under its tutelage, former Trotskyist activists Julien Dray, Didier François, and Harlem Désir created SOS racisme to extend “second-generation” youth politics to a wider public around the notion of an all-embracing and enlightened France.51 Like all anti-racist groups, SOS racisme denounced racist crimes and called for open policies toward immigrants and their children, but it did so by distancing itself from the Beur Movement by embracing a multicultural perspective. According to one of its organizers, “it was necessary for the anti-racist movement not to be linked directly to any one community, which had been the Beur movement’s weakness.”52 Known best for its hand-shaped yellow badge that read “Touche pas à mon pote” (Hands off my friend), SOS racisme was quickly a media sensation. Selling 1.5 million badges in 1985 alone, the term “pote” symbolized a new figure that was neither entirely French nor foreign. Désir, the offspring of an Antillesian father and an Alsatian mother, seemed emblematic of this emerging multiracial society. Engaging in highly symbolic actions, SOS racisme invested its energies in huge concerts, poster campaigns, and television appearances, seeking to win adherents among celebrities, intellectuals, and youth. With 500,000 attendees at the first concert on 15 June 1985 at the Place de la Concorde, SOS racisme surged on the energy of a generation of young voters attracted to multiculturalism and leftist politics.53 As one of its more prominent supporters noted, “This is a youth movement, foreign to prior political cleavages and based on positive values.”54 Or as another supporter asserted, “SOS Racisme is radically different: it does not represent the desires of immigrants but of the majority of French citizens.”55

Key, then, to SOS racisme’s struggle was the assertion that a truly multicultural France could transcend ethno-religious divisions to constitute a united civil society. As evidence, the organizers pointed to the numerous Jews and Muslims who worked together in its activities. While Désir was president, and many “second-generation” Muslims helped run the organization, Dray—an Algerian Jew from Oran—was one of the its primary animators, and Eric Ghébali, president of the Union des étudiants juifs de France [UEJF], was its secretary general. Moreover, in February 1985, SOS racisme won the sponsorship of prominent Jewish intellectuals Bernard-Henri Lévy and Marek Halter, who created a news agency to disseminate information on its activities. Their appearance in a UEJF-sponsored anti-racist demonstration in Paris on the theme, “ ‘I am not a racist but … ’ There is no ‘but’!” provided SOS racisme with its initial media prominence.56 Thus while Muslim-Jewish cooperation was only one aspect of the association’s activities, interethnic alliance quickly became linked with its central mission.

In order to justify the alliance, supporters made a range of arguments that stressed profound similarities between Muslim and Jewish experiences in France.

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