SOS Racisme () is a politically left-wing international movement of anti-racist NGOs. The oldest chapter of SOS Racisme was founded in 1984 in France, and it has counterparts in several other European countries or regions. Its Norwegian branch, which claimed to be both the largest chapter of SOS Racisme and the largest anti-racist organisation in Europe, was controversial for its strong Maoist stance and for defrauding the government, resulting in the organisation's conviction for fraud and its bankruptcy as well as criminal proceedings against its leaders.

Activities

SOS Racisme's stated goal is to fight racial

discrimination Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sex ...

. Often the plaintiff in discrimination trials, the organization also offers support to immigrants and racial minorities that are facing discrimination. It is also heavily involved in protesting and publicising examples of discrimination in society and in the law. SOS Racisme uses testing as a method to expose racial discrimination by finding where racial double standards may exist. For example, two identical work applications might be submitted to a prospective employer, with the only difference being the name of the applicants. One with a name of French origin, the other with a name suggestive of an immigrant. Other testings could take place at a realty office, where two people whose only difference is race would both look for housing, etc.. This tactic has led to numerous lawsuits for racial discrimination, especially against nightclubs.

History

SOS Racisme was created one year after the March for Equality and Against Racism, considered to be the first national anti-racist movement in France, which took place in 1983. Most participants were young people from North African immigration, who protested against racist crimes. In 1984, a second march was organised, led by Farida Belghoul. That same year, the socialist government helped to create SOS Racisme, a more moderate anti-racist organisation, without the main leaders of the two marches, who denounced a "hijacking" of the movement by the Socialist Party. The UEJF, a Jewish student organisation, also played an important part in the creation of SOS Racisme. The guiding principle of the association, brotherhood, is represented by the yellow hand logo upon which is written ''Touche pas à mon pote''. This slogan, which means "Hands off my pal!", was adopted upon the creation of the organization in October 1984. SOS Racisme benefitted from open support from the PS in the 1980s, and many members of SOS Racisme became high-level PS politicians: Harlem Désir, president of SOS Racisme from 1984 to 1992, is today a

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

for the PS; Fodé Sylla, president of SOS Racisme from 1992 to 1999 was at that time a member of the PS (and later a Member of the European Parliament for the Communist Party, PCF); his successor, Malek Boutih, was national secretary of the PS in charge of social issues (including immigration-related issues); another president of SOS Racisme, , started political activism in the UNEF-ID socialist student trade-union, before taking membership in the youth organisation of the PS. SOS Racisme believes that, to put an end to racial discrimination, changes must be made to methods of

urban planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...

and to education. Since the early 1990s, it has denounced the ghettos that are on the outskirts of big cities. The association advocates integration, and often cites examples of successful immigrants or their descendants. At the turn of the century, SOS Racisme declared support for the

Israeli–Palestinian peace process Intermittent discussions are held by various parties and proposals put forward in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict through a peace process. Since the 1970s, there has been a parallel effort made to find terms upon which ...

that was interrupted by the

Second Intifada The Second Intifada (; ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its Israeli-occupied territories, occupation from 2000. Starting as a civilian uprising in Jerusalem and October 2000 prot ...

. It also denounced a resurgence of

antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

in a book jointly published in 2002 with the UEJF, a Jewish student organization. Since then, the two organizations have continued to collaborate. Their ''Rire contre le racisme'' event (Laughing against racism) is held annually since 2004 at the

Zenith The zenith (, ) is the imaginary point on the celestial sphere directly "above" a particular location. "Above" means in the vertical direction (Vertical and horizontal, plumb line) opposite to the gravity direction at that location (nadir). The z ...

concert hall in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, where it has featured performances by comedians such as Michel Boujenah, Dany Boon, Jean-Marie Bigard and Gad Elmaleh. In 2003, they also founded a joint student association called FEDER (''Fédération des Enfants de la République'') which runs for office in university elections. In February 2006, during the ''Jyllands-Posten'' Muhammad cartoons controversy, SOS Racisme organized public meetings to defend their publication.

Bankruptcy and criminal proceedings against Norwegian branch

Its Norwegian branch SOS Rasisme was by far the largest chapter of SOS Racisme and claimed to have 40,000 members and 270 local branches. SOS Rasisme was closely affiliated with and largely controlled by the Workers' Communist Party and later by the Maoist party Serve the People – The Communist League (the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist faction which split from the Workers' Communist Party in 1997 as a result of an internal conflict), and was widely described as a

front organization A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, terrorist organizations, secret societies, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy ...

for those communist parties. SOS Rasisme went bankrupt in 2013 after being convicted of defrauding the government by exaggerating its membership, and 8 of its leaders, including its last President and its last Secretary-General, were indicted for

fraud In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...

embezzlement Embezzlement (from Anglo-Norman, from Old French ''besillier'' ("to torment, etc."), of unknown origin) is a type of financial crime, usually involving theft of money from a business or employer. It often involves a trusted individual taking ...

and

money laundering Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities (often known as dirty money) such as drug trafficking, sex work, terrorism, corruption, and embezzlement, and converting the funds i ...

in 2015Eiliv Frich Flydal,
Åtte tiltalt for grovt bedrageri
�, ''

Dagbladet () is one of Norway's largest newspapers and is published in the Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format. It has 1,400,000 daily readers on mobile, web and paper. Traditionally it was considered the main liberal newspaper of Norway, with a ...

'', 4. september 2015 and subsequently convicted and sentenced to prison in 2016. SOS Rasisme faced strong criticism from the media in Norway and from all mainstream political parties over several years due to its dominance by Maoists, and SOS Racisme has been widely considered politically extreme in Norway and was shunned by some other anti-racist organisations.

Presidents of French chapter

* Harlem Désir, 1984–92 * Fodé Sylla, 1992–99 * Malek Boutih, 1999–2003 * Dominique Sopo, 2003–2012 * Cindy Leoni, 2012–2014 * Dominique Sopo, 2014–''present''

National chapters

* SOS Racisme Switzerland * SOS Racisme Catalunya * SOS Rassismus - AktionCourage e.V. Germany * SOS Racismo Portugal * SOS Racisme Denmark * SOS Razzismo Italy * SOS Rasisme Norway (went bankrupt in 2013 after its conviction for fraud) * SOS Mitmensch Austria * SOS Racismo España https://sosracismo.eu/ (includes several offices in the North of Spain and publishes an annual summary of the state of racism in Spain and Europe: https://sosracismo.eu/informe-sos-racismo/)

References

Bibliography

* Serge Malik, ''L'Histoire secrète de SOS-Racisme''; Albin Michel, 1990; 185 p.,

External links

*
"We all love the same land"
- SOS-Racisme 1990 campaign (''"On aime tous le même pays"'') {{Footer Olof Palme Prize laureates Anti-racism in France Anti-racist organizations in Europe Left-wing advocacy groups in France Politics of France Organizations established in 1984 Human rights organizations based in France Olof Palme Prize laureates