1983

December 3rd marks the 30th anniversary of the arrival in Paris of the March for Equality and Against Racism, a milestone in the history of anti-racist movements in France. It was the triumphant end of a 1,500-kilometre trek across the country's towns and cities, beginning in  Marseille, and which vented the anger of France’s population of North African origin at the prejudice and violence they were regularly the target of. Moroccan immigrant Abdallah Moubine (pictured) was 29 years old at the time, and remembers the marchers’ arrival in the French capital as a “magnificent” event. Moubine, a trade unionist who battled for equal rights for North African immigrants in the French car industry, tells Carine Fouteau about the explosive racist climate of the early 1980s, and reflects on what’s changed since that historic day in December 1983.