SOS Racisme celebrated its 40th anniversary on October 15… amid general indifference. Not a single article in the newspapers nor even a press release from the association which was content with a Facebook post taking up the INA archives. A few days later, the activists were to meet in Dourdan, in Essonne, for their annual autumn university. Again, no real return to the past planned. “The general public events will take place next spring as part of the anniversary of the Concorde concert,” explains Dominique Sopo, now head of SOS Racisme. An astonishing discretion on the part of a movement which revolutionized the fight against racism by rallying a large part of the youth of the 1980s and 1990s to its cause. Before returning to relative anonymity.
Most teenagers are now unaware of the story of this adventure; point out to them that the title of Cyril Hanouna’s show, Don’t touch my post, is a pastiche of “Don’t touch my friend”, the historic slogan of “SOS”, it means taking the risk of facing a host of surprised looks. And yet. In the mid-1980s, hand-shaped badges, produced in yellow and many other colors, were popular; the gigantic Concorde concert attracted between 200,000 and 500,000 people on June 15, 1985; Coluche, Daniel Balavoine and Simone Signoret join forces; Harlem Désir participated, on August 19, 1987, in the show The Moment of Truth – under the watchful eye of his friend and accomplice Julien Dray present in the audience. His formulas hit the mark and attracted the sympathy of the majority of viewers. These young people, including former Trotskyists, activists from the Revolutionary Communist League, Socialist Youth and the Unef union, embody the left of tomorrow, in its diversity. “The context of the time is that of the rise of the National Front which obtained for the first time more than 10% of the votes in the European elections but also the succession of racist crimes and a strong return of the very harsh anti-immigrant discourse which an echo in a context of social crisis, unemployment and a deterioration of the situation in a certain number of suburbs”, Harlem Désir rewinds today.
From these great years, “SOS” was criticized. The Paris Dailya newspaper anchored on the right, tracks its proximity to the Socialist Party, describes Désir as a socialist “submarine”, denounces the “ticket” between the association and François Mitterrand during the 1988 presidential campaign. “Mitterrand quickly understood the interest he could have in supporting this group of young activists We ourselves were seduced by the character who took us a little under his wing while letting us develop our own themes”, remembers Harlem Désir for whom the. unprecedented cohabitation from 1986 to 1988 will justify the need to come together to weigh on subjects as burning as the debates on the reform of the nationality code or the tightening of immigration policy under the Pasqua era, then Minister of Interior.
“Honestly, what did we do wrong?”
The organization is above all accused of playing against its side, by trading the social fight of the left for secondary “societal” struggles. “Everyone fell on us, left and right!” summarizes Malek Boutih, vice-president from 1985 to 1992 then president from 1999 to 2003. “We attacked a movement which advocated equality and defended positive values, which worked for the rapprochement of all communities, which had music and culture as weapons. Frankly, what did we do wrong? he asks L’Express.
One of the biggest charges is led by sociologist Paul Yonnet. In his work Journey to the center of French malaise. Anti-racism and the national novelpublished in 1993, he accuses SOS Racisme of being at the origin of identity tensions. The intellectual denounces the abandonment, by the left, of “the class struggle in favor of the racial struggle”. For the philosopher Marcel Gauchet who signed the preface to the book, republished in 2022, “the problem at the time was not racism”. “The question was rather how we were going to succeed in integrating this population of immigrants coming from a culture often far removed from ours. Instead of seeking to attenuate differences, on the contrary we cultivated and encouraged them, thus creating fractures in society,” he explains. Before concluding: “I have no doubt that the intentions of the founders of SOS Racisme were pure. But I would compare them to apprentice sorcerers who handled explosives in the dark without suspecting the consequences to come.” In fact, the National Front, which became the National Rally, continued to gain ground thereafter.
A false trial for former SOS Racisme activists. Eric Benzekri, the author of the series Black Baron And Fever, claims its membership in the “Touche pas à mon pote” movement in the early 1990s and protests against these adversaries who strive to twist their initial message. “SOS was not leading a fight for differentiation but for equality within the Republic. Because how can there be a Republic worthy of the name if there is no equality?” he insists, arguing that this is how we work towards the unity of a country. “Knowing that the notion of unity is different from that of uniformity,” specifies the screenwriter. According to him, the spirit of the “Republican Front”, an alliance between the right and the left aimed at blocking the FN of the time, would also be a legacy of SOS Racisme. “The importance of creating this sort of cordon santé has shaped this generation which is now 50 years old and over and which has kept this salutary reflex. The last European elections have once again proven this to us,” continues Eric Benzekri. What Malek Boutih sums up in one formula: “If the badge ‘Don’t touch my friend’ is no longer on the lapel of the jacket of these former middle school, high school students and young workers, the values to which they once adhered are still present.”
The emergence of a new anti-racism
Former activists claim to have seen the dangers of the temptation of communitarianism from the beginning of the movement, created in the wake of the great March for equality and against racism – nicknamed the “March of the Beurs” – of 1983. At the time, “SOS” was suspected of recovering this first major national mobilization born after clashes between young people and the police, in Vénissieux (Rhône). The fact that SOS is joining forces with the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF) to combat both racism and anti-Semitism also arouses tensions. “But it is this inclusive, unifying and republican side which precisely made the magic of this movement,” enthuses Eric Ghebali, who then combined the functions of secretary general of SOS Racisme and president of the UEJF. “Already, those who had an approach different from ours demonstrated the need to prioritize the struggles. Likewise, this idea emerged that only the victims of racism themselves were legitimate to lead this fight”, recalls Harlem Désir who has everything subsequently felt the limits of the Anglo-Saxon model. “History has proven us right, we see what it looks like today,” says the founder of SOS, who nevertheless recognizes mistakes along the way.
Like the ambiguity of its positioning at the time when the Creil affair broke out in 1989. For the association, the exclusion of the three schoolgirls who refused to remove their veil within the walls of this Oise college does not seem not justified. “We didn’t want to fall into the stigma or make it a state affair. And then we thought that the affair would die out on its own,” remembers Eric Ghebali. During a tour of Moscow, Yerevan and Baku, thousands of kilometers away, those in charge at the time were amazed to discover that the controversy was making the front page of the World and that intellectuals like Elisabeth Badinter, Régis Debray or Alain Finkielkraut launched a fiery appeal, accusing the government of “capitulating”. “There, we said to ourselves that we had missed something,” says Eric Ghebali. The Gulf War will mark a real turning point. “The fact that SOS does not support the intervention in Iraq has created a real mess with our godfathers and godmothers [NDLR : surnoms attribués aux soutiens et donateurs] who criticized us for not having consulted them”, remembers Patricia Philippe who was in charge of organizing the concerts. “We should not have gotten involved in geopolitics, that was not our role”, regrets again Harlem Desire.
Like other founding members, the latter launched a political career at the dawn of the 2000s. In the suburbs, the old “friends” are gradually losing ground to other influences; religious fundamentalism and drug trafficking are rooted there. “Everything has been blamed on us even though none of this is SOS’s fault!” protests former PS deputy Julien Dray. “The truth is that it was the economic and social policies carried out by subsequent governments, both left and right, which accentuated the social divide, ghettoization, marginalization and therefore developed a form of separatism,” continues the former MP, taking as an example an urban policy that he describes as “ubiquitous”.
The landscape of anti-racism is also changing. A new generation of activists is emerging, less sensitive to the discourse of fraternity summed up by “Don’t touch my friend”. This new anti-racism readily claims to be “political”, a way of implicitly criticizing the weakness of the associations in place. Houria Bouteldja, founder of the Indigenous Party of the Republic in 2005 and leading thinker of this movement, describes “SOS” several times as a “subservient, even ultra-reactionary” association. In question, his refusal to engage in the denunciation of a racism which would be “systemic”, organized by the State itself. This lexicon of “decolonialism”, “state racism”, “white privilege”, “single-racial workshops” is against the universalist discourse of SOS Racisme.
The current president Dominique Sopo defends “testing” operations in the employment or housing sectors, or the prosecutions carried out against racist remarks made by certain personalities. “Our two big “clients” if I may say so are Alain Soral or Dieudonné,” he explains. However, he concedes the association’s lack of visibility on social networks. And the distant successor of Harlem Desire to recognize: “If we want to reach young people, we have to get up to speed on the way we communicate with them.” Starting by celebrating birthdays?
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