FRANCE
The fight against racism and for equal rights atory laws against immigrants date generally from the end of the 1930s, the period of the rise of fascism. A law passed in 1932 barred immigrants from access to employment by national or local government or in the public services that is the ministries, telecommunications, the health service, the railways or in the gas and electricity industry). A decree passed in 1939 denied immigrants the right to organise around political issues.
The municipal election campaign of March 1983 in France was accompanied by a renewal of racist and xenophobic demands directed especially against immigrant workers. The right and the extreme right together have equated the four million immigrants living on French soil with the scourges of unemployment, insecurity, delinquency and all the ills of the economic
The National Front (FN - Front National) led by Jean-Marie Le Pen covered the walls with overtly racist posters saying things like "2 million unemployed equals 2 million too many' or, ment, insecurity and immigration, that's us.
The Mitterrand government entered unhesitatingly into the spirit of this; Gaston Defferre conducted a campaign in Marseilles in which he boasted that, as Minister of the Interior, he had deported more immigrants than the right wing. A short time beforehand the prime minister, Pierre Mauroy, had accused striking immigrant workers from Renault Flins and Citroen of being manipulated by Muslim fundamentalists.
This flare-up of racism is continuing with a train of attempted murders and other crimes, most notably against young, second generation immigrants. It has gone hand in hand with a rise of the extreme right in by-elections. At the same time people have been accustomed to some degree of tolerating racism by the fact that fascist formations such as the Front National' have been allowed to function legally. more and more numerous attacks on the legal rights of immigrant work. ers.
Racism has become a central question in France. It brings in its wake a division of the working class at a time when attacks on workers have been on the increase. The rise of racism undermines the capacity of the working class in general to resist. Helene VIKEN
France was one of the countries in Europe that brought in immigrant labour most massively in the 1960s. Immigration increased by 50 per cent between 1955 and 1965. In order to carry through a rationalisation of productive capacity during the period of internationInternational Viewpoint 30 July 1984
'the fight against unemployFinally there have been al expansion, French employers willingly opened up the country to a large extent.
In order to restructure industry, particularly in cars, construction and producers goods, the capitalists needed new workers. The qualities they were mainly looking for in the new workforce were mobility, lack of trade-union traditions, total lack of skills, and willingness to ac-
The so-called immigrant 'status' is the crowning touch to all these discriminatory laws. It means you have to have a work permit good for one, three or ten years. This gives you access to a specific job in a specific region. Then, besides this, you have to get a special resident's permit.
In one way or another this system makes it possible to deport immigrants to suit the whims or the needs of the employers. Special repressive laws provide for deportation in cases of petty crimes carrying prison sentences (theft, for example). There is an absence of any civil rights such as the right to vote which also extends to local elections.
This virtual partition of the working class came more and more into line with political requirements at the beginning of the economic crisis in 1974-75, under President Giscard d'Estaing. Two reasons explain the onslaught of repressive measures in the mid-1970s:
For one thing, immigrant workers were no longer so useful as before to the ruling class. They had started to revolt (huge strikes had taken place in 197071), to join unions, to organise and to demand their rights (such as in the mobilisation against the so-called BonnetStoleru law in 1978-79 and in the rent strikes in 1976-77 in the shelters for immigrant workers managed by the
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Sonacotra Company, where the accomodations were veritable prison cells).
Secondly, the economic crisis forced the ruling class to start tar-reaching reorganisation of production, with massive redundancies and general lowering of
Immigrants, having served the captialist expansion were used to being used by the bosses as an aid for solving their profit crisis.
The method is classic and relatively simple. It involves, firstly, sacking im migrants in the hopes that the rest of the class will not respond. sackings are facilitated by the notorious special status for immigrants. be added a few racist statements to help the pill go down and give the rest of the working class a scapegoat. come the sackings of indigenous workers.
As a general rule these operations are aimed at dividing the working class and at making it easier for the ruling class to cut wages by means of the threat of unemployment or to dismantle social
This grand plan was only beginning when the reign of the right wing was sharply interrupted by the electoral victory of the left-wing parties on May 10, 1981. But it will be clear that the ruling class had by no means thrown in the
Not having the right to vote, the immigrant population did not participate directly in the election of Francois Mitterrand or of the majority of the Communist Party (CP) and Socialist Party (SP) deputies in May and June 1981. Immigrants were, however, in the streets claiming victory. For them this was the chance to end a situation which had been becoming more and more degrading over not Mitterrand promised immigrants the right to vote in municipal elections, to possess a ten year universal perrenewed automatically, (1) the suppression of the Bonnet-Stoleru 1939 and the regularisation of the position of workers without legal papers? Disillusionment sets in
It is undeniable that these promises, however inadequate, pointed to a different framework and policy for immigrants. People spoke in the euphoria of victory about integration, about dignity, about recognition of the immigrant worker as a about a definite break with the position
The reality brought disillusionment after a year. The government had indeed abolished the 1939 decree and had extended the right of association. It had also regularised the situation for some workers without the proper papers, though not all. It had introduced certain criteria, linked mainly to employment, which excluded from this right many immigrants who had been hired clandestinely by so-called slave-trader employ-
IMMIGRANT POPULATION IN FRANCE migrants in the population (which is known as a tolerance level") but to the economic crisis unemployment. figures, taken from the 1983 census show that of immigrants has remained the same since 1975 (when immigration was stopped) whilst unemployment has increased immigrants are not responsible for unemployers; that is, bosses who recruit immigrant labour on super exploitative terms. had at last repealed the Bonnet laws, which permitted the deportation of any worker, without the least safeguards.
But things very soon went sour. The voted through by parliament was quickly baptised by the immigrant population as the Bonnet law, mark II, so Furthermore, the CP and the SP made an about turn, adopting provisions that followed the drift of anti-immigrant statements of the bosses and the right.
In September 1982 immigrants were denied the right to vote in the municipal These elections were to be marked by a surge of racism that could have been contained if immigrants had been given the right to vote and the relationship of forces on the electoral level were brought into line with the real relationship of
In August 1983 came the publication of the Georgina Dufoix (secretary of state for immigrants) decrees. ter proposed accelerating steps to expel clandestine workers and increased border control to stop the entrance of new immigrants. Despite high-flown but hollow declarations by the left leaders, this pack. age contafned no measures for integrating immigrants into the society.
Open season was declared on immigrants with massive police round-ups in certain sections of the large cities, the systematic expulsion of all immigrants
This demand, which was shared by the workers organisations before May 10, 1981, is a first step toward freedom
It challenges the current syswhich makes the right to permanent residence contingent on employment and the right to work contingent of the possession of a work permit for a limited period, in a specific trade. can have ten years residence and only possess a work permit for three years that they have to renew before it expires, being left without any guarantee that they can stay in France especially if, in the meantime, they become unemployfound in clandestine workshops, racist identity checks in the streets and metros, police raids on shelters in the middle of the night, etc.
The left in government did everything it could to give more force to the slogan "immigration equals insecurity'. migrants became potential suspects. extreme right got its best electoral results in this period.
The other side of the equation is that "immigration equals unemployment'. came full circle at the time of the confrontation at the Talbot Poissy (2) car factory when the government supported the management's proposals for 2,000 redundancies, four out of five to be immigrants who were also offered 'help in returning home to their own country
Now, or in the near future, the Citzoe and Renault factories will also becom targets for attacks by the bosses of the car industry: yet more 'OS' immignin to sack - the very ones that were broug ten, fifteen or twenty years ago in order to make more juicy profits.
The May 10 victory[ Mitterrand's ellen tion] enabled immigrant workers to put a stop to what had been going on 'before. Since then, they have often taken th lead in resistance in the factories. first big strike wave hit the most archai factories in the industry (Citroen and Tal bot), where a nineteenth century-style management used to rule the workers with an iron fist, with the help of a single official union - the fascist, tion of Free Trade Unions (Confederation des Syndicats Libres - CSL). Immigrants fight back
The 'OS' immigrants went on strike for their dignity, to improve their conditions of work and for trade-union freedoms at least equivalent to those in other factories in the industry, such as Renault. They were successful and forced the management to accept real unions, the Confederation Generale de Travail (CGT) and the Confederation Francaise Democratique du Travail (CFDT), thereby shattering the bosses' fascist system.
Following on from this, the 'OS' immigrants once again took the lead in battle at Renault Flins and Citroen Aulnay in the spring of 1983. struck for a pay rise at the very moment the government was deciding to implement its first austerity plan by imposing a wage freeze without compensation for lost buying power. Once again they were successful, thus giving an example to the whole working class. (3)
The permit for ten years would act as an and would give immigrants guarantee that they can stay in France and find work for as long as they wanted. ly leaves out the question of which category of immigrant would have these reformists (before May 10) because they have sought since 1974 to stop all immigration, it
LCR this permit issued to all immigrants on entry into France.
See Inprecor, No 144, March 28, 1984. International Viewpoint 30 July 1984
tions and associations but also involved growing numbers of workers, as well as French and immigrant youth resolutely determined to 'End Racism Now'.
The arrival of the march in Paris at the beginning of December brought together 100,000 people. supported by the CP, SP, CGT, CFDT, FEN (Federation de l'education national - National Education Federation), MRAP (Movement contre le racisme pour l'amitie entre les FASTI (Federation des Associations de solidarite avec les travailleurs immigres)
PSU (Parti Socialist Unifie), LCR revolutionnaire Revolutionary French section of the Fourth International), plus other immigrant organisations, to name only the most important.
When Georgina Dufoix addressed a few words to the meeting at the end of shouts for equal rights, for the right to vote, for the ten year permit, for the right to housing, etc. from the bulk of the demon-
This huge show of strength, streets, against the government's whole policy towards immigrants sparked a redence of those opposed to racism and helped to mobilise larger numbers against
Other initiatives are currently preparation, most notably a European campaign on the rights of immigrants.
The rise of racism in France is a real danger, but it is not inevitable. a growing feeling amongst workers and young people, and it is opening up the way for a sustained effort to build a broad united front against racism and for
Immigrant workers on strike in the Talbot-Poissy factory (DR)
But the employers had not had their
In the atmosphere of racism that followed the municipal election campaign in March 1983, the redundancies projected in the car industry were specially designed to break down this new base of workers opposition. The example of delegates from the CGT and the militants of the CFDT were top of the list of redundancies, is only one illustration of the employers objec-
Another factor which has put a spanner [monkey wrench] in the works for the right wing and for the ruling class appeared in 1983 at the height of the racist campaign. This was the massive radicalisation and sudden mobilisation of immigrant youth. Forgotten in the employers plans, the second generation, that is the children of immigrants who came to France ten or twenty years ago, were coming on the political scene with force and determination.
These young people no longer wanted to be the target of racist aggression in the working class cities and suburbs. They were tired of being the disinherited, uprooted from their families' countries of origin, born in France and yet rejected by International Viewpoint 30 July 1984 her. They were demanding equal rights, for themselves and all immigrants. It was among a group of these young immigrants in the outskirts of Lyon that the idea arose for a large march for equality and against racism across the length of France.
Leaving Marseilles with ten people on October 15, 1983, they watched their ranks grow, with people assembled to welcome and support them as they advanced on foot across the country. In all towns support committees were set up. They included numerous organisa4. MRAP: unity of all peoples.
and against anti-semitism in MRAP has gressively and therefore
The Communing bodies. now, under the organised into local have introduced a more proach, which is MRAP open conference by MRAP March 17 - 18 basis.
favour of the right to equal rights. For the LCR, this struggle plays a key role, since it is obvious that division within the workers movement can wreak havoc when its enemies are preparing to mount major attacks
Aligned with the interests of the bourgeoisie, ment policy towards immigrants threatens the unity of the working class. The main axes of the struggle against it are the for the right to work, for the 10 year renewable permit, against deportation and for the regularisation of all those without papers. immigration control. still holds the essential positions of the Com-
Federation of Associations in formed in 1966 and 1969 essentially in the framework concrete solidarity with immigrants; for liter-
Their federation in 1971 gave birth to FASTI, which today organises 5,000 supporters and plays a pivotal role in building unity between French and immigrant workers in the fight against racism and for equal rights. its political independence and the arrival of to power did not affect its positions in defence of immigrants, against ex without papers, against racism and for a multito vote and the universal permit.
Immigrants have neither the right to vote nor any political rights They live under the threat of deportation for the vaguest reasons, such as being a 'threat to the interests of Federal Germany'. In conformity with Paragraph 19 of the