March for Equality and Against Racism

The March for Equality and Against Racism (French: Marche pour l’égalité et contre le racisme), also called Beurs’ March (Marche des beurs) by French media (beur is the backslang of arabe), was an anti-racist march that took place in France in 1983, from October 15 to December 3.

It was the first national anti-racist movement in France.

In the summer of 1983, riots occurred in the district of Les Minguettes in Vénissieux, a suburb city of Lyon. Widely reported in the media, it was the first incident of large scale public unrest in a French suburb, and marked the first time cars were burned as a protest in France. In 1983, France was experiencing a wave of racist crimes, particularly perpetrated against African immigrants from The Maghreb (for example, the murder of Habib Grimzi, stabbed in a train and then defenestrated, a crime committed by three army soldiers with racist motivations). On March 21, 1983, a police raid led to violent confrontation between a group of young people of Les Minguettes and the police. Demanding the end to police intimidation, a hunger strike began. On June 21, 1983, during a police raid, a police officer shot and seriously injured Toumi Djaïdja, the young president of the association SOS Avenir Minguettes (SOS Minguettes’ Future). In response, the idea of a nonviolent march emerged in order to attempt to reduce tensions between the police and the youth of Les Minguettes. Priest Christian Delorme (called Minguettes’ priest, in French: Curé des Minguettes) and pastor Jean Costil, organised an extended, non-violent march, inspired by Reverend Martin Luther King's demonstrations calling for the end of segregation in the United States and those of Mahatma Gandhi for Indian independence from the United Kingdom. They demanded equal rights, and an end to injustice and social inequality.

In 1983, during the Dreux’s local election, the National Front (French: Front National (FN)) won the first round of the elections, with 16.72% of votes. So far, the National Front was electorally marginal (only 0.35% of votes during the legislative election of 1981). For the second round, the list of the political party of Jacques Chirac, the Rally for the Republic (French: Rassemblement Pour la République (RPR)) decided to merge with the FN list. This merger was approved by Jacques Chirac, who declared: "I would not have been embarrassed at all to vote for the RPR-FN list for the second round. It does not matter to have four municipal councillors from the FN in Dreux, compared to the four communist Ministers in the Council of Ministers". In the right-wing parties, only two leaders disagreed with this alliance: Simone Veil and Bernard Stasi, both from the centre-right Union for French Democracy (French: Union pour la Démocratie française, UDF), a traditional ally of RPR. These elections made the news at this time, as it was the first time a far-right political party won a significant election in France since the beginning of the French Fifth Republic, and also the first time that a major right-wing party made an alliance with a far-right party.

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