Case Study: Race Relations in France in the 1980s
Key Questions:
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How did the French Economy change after 1974 and how did that affect French attitudes to immigrants
What was the attitude of the Socialist Government towards Immigrants?
Why did racist attitudes grow in France in the 1980s and what Impact did it have in French Politics.
What measures did people in France take to counter the growth of racism?
How did the Various Political Parties respond to the growth of Le front national
How did the Debate about the Issues of Race and Identity develop in France in the late 1980s?
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1. How did the French Economy change after 1974 and how did that affect French
attitudes to immigrants.
The years of economic prosperity which drew so many immigrants into France began in the Fourth Republic (194558) and continued into the Fifth. De Gaulle’s Fifth Republic was led by a president elected for7 years. He had
extensive powers, though he had to work with a Prime Minister elected by the National Assembly. During this time
there were several political parties, but basically they were divided into Centre-Right Parties that had supported de
Gaulle and his ideas and were usually called Gaullists. On the left were the Socialists and the much smaller
Communist party.
The economy flourished while de Gaulle was President and continued to do so under his successor, Georges
Pompidou (1969-74). The good years came to an end during the term of the third Gaullist President, Valéry
Giscard d’Estaing (1974-81). Just before Giscard was elected, the Arab oil countries cut the supply of oil and raised
the price. They did so again in 1979. These ‘Oil Shocks’ ended the period of economic growth and created serious
economic problems in most western countries, including France. There was rapid inflation accompanied by
economic stagnation. Long established companies closed or reduced the number of workers. The hardest hit were
heavy industries (such as mining and construction) in which most immigrants worked. Unemployment rose to
above 10% of the workforce.
During the prosperous years, most French people had cared little about immigration. They saw immigrants as an
economic asset, doing jobs that needed to be done. Although employers were supposed to get permission to bring
in foreign workers, many ignored this requirement which meant that technically many immigrants were illegal.
Everyone turned a blind eye to it. But as the economy slowed down, and unemployment increased from the mid1970s, attitudes to immigrants began to change. Even though both native and immigrant workers were laid off,
and all found it hard to get jobs, some French people turned on the immigrants. They complained that immigrants
competed with French workers for scares jobs and were a drain on the French taxpayer because they were now
claiming social welfare father than paying taxes.
Giscard’s immiGration Policy: Giscard’s government responded to these developments by changing
France’s immigration policy. From 1974, no immigrants were to be allowed into France, although people who
were already resident could still bring in their families. The government offered money to help immigrants to
return to their home countries. It was expected that 1 million would go home, but only 100,000 left and half of
these were Italians or Spanish. This had the unintended result of increasing the proportion of immigrants who
were non-European.
Finally, the Bonnet Law of 1980 gave the police greater powers to search for and deport illegal immigrants. This
increased the police harassment of immigrant communities and made them feel insecure.
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2. What was the attitude of the Socialist Government towards Immigrants?
The Socialist Attitude to Immigrants: Giscard’s anti-immigration policies stimulated a debate about
immigrants and how they should be treated. The Socialist Party opposed his policy and produced their own. It was
based on a more realistic assessment of the way the situation had developed since the 1950s. The Socialists
accepted that most of the immigrants who were in France were not going to return to their native land. France
was now their home, therefore they and their children, who were French citizens, were entitled to the same rights
and freedoms as all other people in France. The Socialists also acknowledged that immigrants had the right to their
own cultural and religious traditions, even when they were different from the culture and religion of the majority
of French people.
mitterrand’s immiGration Policy: In May 1981, the Socialist candidate, Francois Mitterrand was elected
President. Shortly after this, the Socialist Party won the elections to the National Assembly. During the elections,
Mitterrand promised to change immigration policy. This led to several important reforms in 1981 and 1982.
Because unemployment remained high, the Socialists continued Giscard’s policy of ending immigration, but they
halted the deportation of illegal immigrants until their cases could be reviewed by the courts. No children were to
be deported in the future. Illegal immigrants who had jobs were offered an amnesty. About 130,000 people took
advantage of this offer. The power of the police to stop people and demand identity papers was limited. The
government recognised that children whose parents did not speak French at home were at a disadvantage in
school. To compensate for this they gave extra resources to schools in areas with large immigrant populations. For
the first time, immigrants were given the right to set up social, political and cultural organisations without first
getting official permission.
3. Why did racist attitudes grow in France in the 1980s and what Impact did it
have in French Politics.
Insecurity Increases Opposition to Immigrants: However, the Socialist government’s policies
provoked a reaction. In 1983, a public opinion poll suggested that 46% of French people thought that they had
done too much for immigrants, as against 34% who approved of their policies. This hostility to immigrants which
was particularly strong among poorer people grew from a sense of insecurity which came from several sources.
A. RAPID SOCIAL CHANGE: During the prosperous years France had changed hugely. In 1945 it was mainly rural,
agricultural country. Most people lived in the country or in small towns. They had worked on farms or in small
businesses and knew all the people in the neighbourhood. By 1980 a majority of French people lived in large cities.
Their homes were often apartments in tower blocks. In many cases they did not know who their neighbours were.
People worked for large and impersonal organisations, often commuting long distances every day.
These changes happened very quickly and they destroyed many of the familiar landmarks in people’s lives. This
made them feel insecure. But while it was not always easy to say exactly what changed, one obvious new
development was the presence in France’s of large numbers of foreigners with dark skin colours, strange languages
and unfamiliar customs. Foreigners were most visible in the cities like Paris, Lyon and Marseilles where opposition
to immigration was the strongest.
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B. THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN: After the economy began to decline in 1974, may people had either lost their jobs or
feared that they would. They believed that some of these jobs had gone to immigrants or that employers would
favour immigrants for new jobs because they would work for lower wages.
C. THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL DISORDER: As in most developed countries, the levels of crime and social disorder rose in
France from the 1960s. Gang wars, riots and drug-related crime were common in high rise council estates where
social conditions were difficult, unemployment was high and facilities limited. Yet they were also the places where
many ethnic minorities lived. Although French people were also involved in crime, both the police and the press
tended to highlight cases that involved immigrants. This created the impression that the increase in crime was
linked to the increase in immigration. As a result, French people associated immigrants and their families with
riots, drugs, crime, AIDS and all the other ills of modern society.
Jean Marie Le Pen and Le Front National : These developments gave an opening for the extreme rightwing party, Le Front National (FN) led by Jean Marie Le Pen. He was the son of a Breton fisherman who had served
briefly in the army in Vietnam and Algeria and was elected to the National Assembly in1957. After being involved
with various right-wing movements, he set up his own party, Le Front National in 1972. The FN was anticommunist, anti-Semitic and anti-Immigration. It campaigned for “France for the French” and opposed greater
French involvement in the EEC. It was not very successful in the 1970s, gaining less than 1% of the vote in various
elections. However, that changed in the 1980s due to various factors: The failure of various governments to solve
the economic crisis; the high level of unemployment, which reached its peak in 1987; the insecurity felt by many
older and poorer French people; the discussion of immigration that Mitterrand’s reforms encouraged.
Rise in Support for the FN: Local elections in 1983 gave the first sign of the growing support for the FN.
Mitterrand had planned to give immigrants the right to vote for local councils and Le Pan campaigned against this.
The FN won about 10% of the vote across the whole of France. Its biggest breakthrough came in the industrial
town of Dreux, north of Paris. Unemployment was high there and a 1/3 of the population were immigrants. The FN
in alliance with the Gaullist Parties, used racist slogans such as ‘The French First’ and ‘2 million unemployed means
2 million immigrants too many’ and won 16% of the vote.
A similar pattern appeared in later elections. In the 1984 elections to the European Parliament, the FN got over
10% of the vote and Le Pen was elected an MEP. In the 1988 presidential election, Le Pen created a sensation by
getting 4.3 million votes, or 14.4% of the total. Support for the FN was unevenly spread. It was greatest in the
regions around Paris, Lyon and Marseilles, where 60% of all foreigners lived. In the 1988 elections, for example, Le
Pen got 28% of the vote in Marseilles, twice the national average. The strength of the FN in the south of France
may also have been connected to the fact that many of the pieds noirs from Algeria had settled there, bringing
their bitter memories of the war with them.
4. What measures did people in France take to counter the growth of racism?
Anti-Racism: The language used by Le Pen and the FN encouraged racism. There were more racist attacks on
immigrants or on people who looked like immigrants. This outraged many French people. Prominent leaders of the
Catholic, protestant and Jewish faiths denounced racism and people began to form anti-racist groups and to
demonstrate against racism.
The Emergence of Immigrant Movements: One of Mitterrand’s most important reforms was to allow
immigrants to form social, cultural and political organisations without seeking official permission. This led to a
flowering of voluntary movements. Some dealt with social issues like housing or unemployment. Others were
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educational, for example organising French language classes. Some were religious, planning to build a mosque or
organise classes in religion. Among the children of immigrants, who were all French citizens, organisations emerged
to help them define their own identity and stand up for their rights.
Les Beurs: In the south of France, where Le Pen had his greatest successes, the children of Maghrebi
immigrants called themselves by the slang term Beurs. They began to develop new cultural movements that
merged with the culture and traditions of their parents with the culture and traditions of the French among whom
they had gown up. Films from Beur producers, like Mehdi Charef’s ‘Le The au harem d’Archimede’ (1985) won
prizes for their original treatment of life in the high-rise banlieues. Radio stations aimed at the immigrant
population played traditional music, like Algerian rai, which introduced a wider French audience to this kind of
music. At the same time, young Beur musicians blended rai with American blues and other influences to produce a
distinctive “pop-rai”.
Les MArches Des Beurs: As support for FN grew, racist attacks became more common. After a young Muslim
man was wounded by the police in Lyons, young Beurs in the south of France organised a march ‘for equality and
against racism’. Inspired by the marches of Ghandi and Martin Luther King, it began in Lyon in October 1983.
Young people of all races joined it along the way. By the time President Mitterrand greeted the marchers in Paris in
December, it was 100,000 strong.
SOS Racisme: A more organised opposition to racism appeared in the movement called SOS Racisme, led by
Harlem Desir. The son of a black father from Martinique and a French mother, Desir grew up as a Catholic on a
high-rise housing estate. He believed that the future lay in mixing cultures, religions and races and helped to set up
SOS Racisme in 1984. The movement used a raised hand as a symbol, with the slogan ‘touche pas a mon pote’
which is usually translated as ‘hands off my mate’. Backed by the Socialist government, SOS Racisme organised
marches and demonstrations against racism. In 1885, it organised a pop concert in Paris with the support of the
Minister for Culture, Jack Lang. It was attended by over 300,000 people of all races and religions in what Desir
called ‘La Concorde des Potes’.
Divisions within the Immigrant Communities: Yet many of the Beurs came to distrust SOS Racisme
because of its links to the Socialist Party. They set up their own organisation, France Plus. Its aim was to get people
from immigrant backgrounds elected to local and national bodies. It was successful, but those who were elected
were mostly fairly well-educated and prosperous and had little in common with people from the high-rise flats,
whatever their racial origin. This illustrates the divisions among people from immigrant backgrounds. They came
from different places, had different cultural traditions and different levels of success in French society. This made it
almost impossible for them to form a united front against the racism of Le Pen and his supporters.
5. How did the Various Political Parties respond to the growth of Le front national?
Racism in Politics: Le Pen and the FN put the issues of immigration, race and identity at the centre of French
national politics. After the success of the FN both the Socialists and the Gaullist parties adopted a more restrictive
attitude towards immigrants. The Socialist reforms of the early 1980s were based on the idea of a multicultural
France with people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds living together in mutual tolerance. But after
1983, Mitterrand pulled back from this generous vision. He did not keep his promise to give immigrants the right
to vote in local elections, made it more difficult for them to bring their families into France and stepped up the
deportation of illegal immigrants. The Gaullist parties on the right feared that they were losing voters to the FN.
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This made them attack immigration and immigrants. While never as openly racist as the FN, they used similar
language which made Le Pen extremist language more respectable.
Jacques chirac’s hard-Line Immigration Policies: In 1986 there were elections to the National
Assembly. The Gaullist parties promised that if elected, they would offer immigrants a choice between assimilation
and being sent home. They won a majority and Jacques Chirac became Prime Minister. He adopted a tough line on
immigration. Non-EEC immigrants were forces to get visas to enter France; Police were given the power to demand
that people produce their identity papers and under the Pasqua Law (named after Chirac’s Minister of the Interior,
Charles Pasqua) police were allowed to deport immigrants for being a ‘threat to public order’. This deliberately
vague phrase gave them great power over the lives of immigrants. In one notorious incident, 101 people from Mali
were bundled onto a plane and sent home without any chance to appeal.
Chirac also wanted to change the Nationality Code that gave citizenship automatically to all children born in
France. He proposed that instead they should have the right to apply for citizenship when they reached the age of
18. This created a storm of protest from bodies like SOS Racisme and the leaders of various religious
denominations. At the same time, there were mass demonstrations by students protesting against changes in the
universities. In one demonstration, a student of Moroccan origin was beaten to death by the police. This forced
Chirac to postpone change the Nationality Code until a commission on it had a chance to report.
The 1988 Presidential Elections: There was a presidential election in 1988. Chirac was the main Gaullist
candidate standing against President Mitterrand. The President campaigned on the theme of a united France and
the need for ethnic integration. (During the election campaign Mitterrand’s rallies featured a Beur band called
‘Carte de Sejour’ – residence permit) He attacked Chirac for giving support to Le Pen’s racist proposals. Le Pen also
stood for election, claiming that immigrants from North Africa were endangering lives of French people and
stealing their jobs, he got 14.4% of the vote. Mitterrand was re-elected and in the National Assembly elections that
followed, the Socialist and communist parties won a small majority. But the new Socialist government kept the
restrictions on immigration, though they softened the harsher parts of the Pasqua Law. The only significant
reform they brought in was to strengthen anti-racism legislation in 1990.
6. How did the Debate about the Issues of Race and Identity develop in France in the
late 1980s?
Immigration, Race and Identity: The political developments meant that issues of immigration, race and
identity were hotly debated in France throughout the 1980s. These debates brought a number of issues to the fore:
Who were the French? An important question related to national identity. Le Pen and the FN claimed that only
people of French blood (ancestry) were truly French and he denied that the French born children of immigrants
should be considered French. Many French people agreed with him, especially when the immigrants were Muslim.
An opinion poll in the later 1980s showed that only 30% of people thought a Muslim could be truly French. But
France’s nationality Code clearly stated that children born in France were French, even though their parents were
foreign born. That was why Le Pen and even Chirac wanted to change it.
Who was an Immigrant? Another issue related to the world ‘immigrant’. The way the French used it changed
subtly from early 1980s. Nearly half of all immigrants into France were Europeans and most of them came from
countries that either were in the EEC or were about to join it. As a result they could easily come and go. Gradually
the French stopped thinking of them as immigrants. More and more the word ‘immigrant’ was used for people who
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came from outside Europe, which in turn usually translated into a person with dark skin or one who belonged to a
non-Christian religion. And since by far the largest group of immigrants in this category came from North Africa and
belonged to the Islamic faith, people began to use the words ‘Muslim’ and ‘immigrant’ interchangeably. Gradually
the fear of immigrants became fear of ‘Muslims’.
the headscarf affair (l’affaire foulard’): These issues can be seen in the huge passions aroused by
the Headscarf Affair. In 1989, the headmaster of a state school in Creil, north of Paris, excluded three Muslim girls
because they were wearing headscarves. They believed that they were following Islamic teaching on female dress
and he claimed that they were breaking the French Law of laicite (secularism). The Laicite law was passed in 1905
and grew out of a quarrel between the French State and the Catholic Church. It ended the position of the Catholic
Church as France’s official religion. It turned the French Republic into a secular state, that is, a state that is neutral
between religions. It banned all religious teaching in state-run schools. The aim of this was to protect pupils from
being pressured into adopting Catholic beliefs.
Although religious teaching was banned, pupils were allowed to display emblems of their faith. Catholic girls could
wear medals or crucifixes and Jewish boys could wear a yarmulke (skullcap). These were considered to be private
expressions of belief. But the headmaster in Creil argued that headscarves were a public statement of belief and
therefore had to be stopped.
SOS Racisme appealed against him to be Minister for Education. Somewhat hesitantly, he overturned the
headmaster’s decision. The Council d’Etat, France’s highest administrative court, backed him. It ruled that
expressions of religious belief were legitimate so long as they did not pose a threat to public order or attempt to
persuade or bully others.
The Headscarf Affair Divides France: The affair caused huge controversy in France. People divided not
along party lines, but according to their view of Muslim society and teaching. Feminists, for example, were split
between those who supported the right of the girls to make up their own minds and those who argued that
headscarves were a symbol of Islam’s oppression of women and that banning them would protect Muslim women.
As might be expected, Le Pen condemned the Minister’s decision as undermining the security of France. Opinion
was divided among Muslims too. The appeal against the headscarf ban was made by the multi-ethnic, multidenominational SOS Racisme, not by a Muslim organisation. France Plus, the main organisation of Maghrebis,
came out in favour of a complete ban on wearing headscarves in schools. An opinion poll in the paper Le Monde,
found that only 30% of Muslims supported the girls, while 45% were against allowing headscarves in schools.
When an Islamic group organised a protest march in Paris, only 500 people turned up and most of them were
Turkish.
Why did the Headscarf Affair cause such Passion? The heat with which French people debated the
issue seems strange. It is easiest to explain it by reference to two developments: 1: the Growth of Muslim
Fundamentalism and 2. The Fear that Muslims would soon overwhelm Christian France.
1: Iran and Muslim Fundamentalism:
In the middle of the 20th century, most Muslim countries like Turkey or Algeria adopted a policy of secularism – not
unlike that which existed in France. In Turkey, for example, women were forbidden to wear the headscarf in
public. That changed with the revolution in Iran in 1979. The leader of the revolt was Ayatollah Khomeini, a
Muslim cleric who had spent years in exile in Paris. He was a fundamentalist who believed that the Koran
contained the word of Allah (God) and that good Muslims should live their lives according to its teachings. He
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established the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was to be governed by the traditional Islamic legal system – Sharia
Law. One result was that women were required to cover their heads in public. The Ayatollah also preached against
secular Western society, especially that of America, which he labelled ‘the Great Satan’.
In the years that followed, there were a number of conflicts, around the world in which Muslims could be seen as
victims of aggression. There was the on-going Arab-Israeli conflict in Palestine. In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan, a Muslim country. In some Muslim countries like Egypt and Algeria, parties that wanted to create an
Islamic state were outlawed and their members imprisoned. In Algeria, this led to a savage though undeclared civil
war in which thousands died. Attempts by the Algerians to spread their cause to France led to a number of terrorist
incidents.
While the conflicts were not directly connected to each other, taken together they made Muslims living in Europe
more conscious of their identity as Muslims. In France, the number of Muslims who observed their religion by
praying or fasting through Ramadan increased and some women began to cover their heads in public. However,
these developments did not necessarily mean support for fundamentalism. They could also have been: Gestures of
defiance at the racism of Le Pen; protests against the way French society discriminated against Muslims; the
natural reaction of young people against the secular attitudes of their parents.
But only a tiny number of French Muslims responded in this way. When the girls at Creil were excluded from
school for wearing headscarves, very few other Muslim girls followed their example, most Muslims were content
to be part of French society and opinion polls showed that most of them supported secularism as the best way of
protecting themselves against persecution. Algerian Islamicists failed to recruit more than a handful of young
French Muslims. When they were put on trial their evidence suggested that they had acted more out of
resentment at French racism and despair at their lack of opportunities than for any Islamic ideal.
2: Fear of Muslims:
The second reason for the panic over the headscarves was a fear that France was about to be overwhelmed by
Muslims, There were panic stricken discussions of Muslims imposing Sharia Law on France. With French women
forced out of education and the workplace. The basis of these fears was the rapid growth of the Muslim
population within France. By 1990 it was estimated to be about 7 or 8 million – over 10% of the population – but
that estimation is highly suspect. Because the French state is secular, it does not ask people about their religion on
census forms. Therefore no one knows how many French Muslims there are. The figure of 7 or 8 million assumed
that all children of immigrants from all Muslims countries are Muslim, which is probably not true. It is even more
unlikely that all of them are fundamentalists, and in fact, research shows that a high proportion of those who call
themselves Muslim do not practice their religion – juts like the majority of French Catholics.
Black, Beur, Blanc: A Symbol of Integration? After the 1980s, racism remained an important issue in
French politics. Le Pen and the FN continued to win between 10 and 15% of the votes in elections. There were
regular debates about women wearing headscarves and whether Muslims and/or the children of immigrants could
be truly French.
Yet there were also areas of life where race did not matter. One of these was football. In 1998 the French tea,
competing for the World Cup contained men who were black, Beur and Blanc (white). All but one were born in
France. L Pen questioned whether they could truly represent France but few people listened to him, especially
when two goals by Zinedine Zidane, the French born son of Algerian Immigrants raised in the banlieues of
Marseilles won the World Cup for France
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