The activities of the organization "SOS Racism" in the framework of French migration policy. 1983-1989.

Abstract

The article analyzes the French state policy on the preservation of national and religious identity in the period from the march for equality and against racism in 1983 to the first scandal with the wearing of religious clothing in a public educational institution in 1989. "SOS Racism" was created in 1984. with the support of the ruling Socialist Party in France at that time and thanks to the attention of the major media, he quickly became the most famous anti-racist organization in France, turning into a symbol of French policy towards migrants of Muslim faith. The article, based on modern French historiography and memoirs of direct participants in the events, shows that the main activity of "SOS Racism" was aimed at working with university students and lyceum students in order to consolidate left-wing political views among young people to counter the growing popularity of the National Front, and not at improving the lives of migrants in the difficult suburbs of large French cities. Over time, SOS Racism increasingly turned from a public to a political organization, which became especially noticeable during the pre-election campaign before the presidential elections of 1988, when SOS Racism held large-scale events in support of F. Mitterrand. As a result, a power vacuum appeared in the suburbs of large cities, which was quickly filled by Muslim organizations, some of which were radical, fundamentalist in nature and almost all of them existed on foreign money. Thus, the rise in popularity of the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood, which began in the 1980s, largely determining the agenda of radical Islam in the modern Fifth Republic, was, among other things, a consequence of the unsuccessful work of the "SOS Racism" with the migrant community of France.