Two interviews carried out at the October 2008 Forum Social des Quartiers Populaires in the Paris suburb of Nanterre reveal some of the political activism taking place, respectively, among French Muslim women and with immigrant elders from former French colonies. In the first case, the issue is raised of whether the wider women's movement will recognise a specifically Islamic feminism. The second interview draws attention to a struggle to recognise memories and experiences that have been largely neglected.
Funded by the Network of European Foundations (European Programme on Integration and Migration).
2.
See `Call for the National Social Forum of the Banlieues', <www.habitants.de/en/news/movements/index.php/art_0000003> ;.
3.
For a full report in English of the conference, see Liz Fekete, `Unity of purpose in the French banlieues', IRR News (9 October 2008), <http://www.irr.org.uk/2008/october/ha000019.html>.
4.
The book by Caroline Fourest has the subtitle, The doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan. Fourest is a French feminist who was given a `laïcitê' award in 2005. She was also one of the original eleven signatories, alongside Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Salman Rushdie, of the 2006 manifesto, `Together facing the new totalitarianism'.
5.
A network that provides training courses for Muslim activists in several French-speaking countries.
6.
The Collective of Feminists for Equality was created following a petition in Le Monde in December 2004 entitled, `A veil on discrimination'. It includes both non-Muslim and Muslim feminists and its charter states there is no `one single model of liberation and emancipation for women' and calls for respect for freedom of choice on the wearing of the headscarf.
7.
`Sonac' is a slang term for someone not born in France. It is derived from SONACOTRA - Société nationale de construction de logements pour les travailleurs algériens (National Company for the Construction of Housing for Algerian Workers) - a company, recently renamed Adoma, that builds or buys lodgings for poor people, including immigrants and the unemployed.
8.
Days of Glory (2006), directed by French-Algerian Rachid Bouchareb, tells the story of five `indigènes' who, as French soldiers, took part in the liberation of France in the second world war - illustrating both the debt France owes to its ex-colonial populations and the place immigrant populations have in French history and culture. The film was accompanied by a campaign for equal war pensions for all French soldiers.
9.
Yasmina Benguigui is a French film-maker and producer of Algerian descent, who has made a number of films including Inch'Allah Dimanche (2001) and Mémoires d'Immigrés, l'héritage maghrébin (1997) - the latter being a series of testimonies by North African immigrants in France and their descendants.
10.
A London High Court decision of September 2008 ruled in favour of Gurkhas who had retired from the British army before 1997 being allowed the right to stay in the UK. The judge pointed to a `moral debt of honour' owed to the Gurkhas.
