⁽¹⁾ Maghrebi immigrant workers

France has a long history of immigration, which started long before other European countries. It began towards the end of the 19th century, after a period of French population decline and [a resulting] need to increase France’s labour force due to industrialisation, or what is called in French, ‘les grands travaux’. Many migrants came from neighbouring countries like Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and Poland. However, they also came from the Maghreb because of the colonial history of France in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

⁽²⁾ CSRP

Comités de Soutien à la Révolution Palestinienne (committees in support of the Palestinian revolution or CSRP), also known as the ‘Comités Palestine’ (Committees for Palestine). Created in reaction to Black September (1970) and dissolved in 1972, the Comités Palestine were mostly composed of Arab workers and students. They were part of the first organisations to stand in solidarity with the Palestine people in France, and the creators of the Mouvement des travailleurs arabes (Movement of Arab Workers or MTA) in June 1972.

⁽³⁾ Arab Nationalism

Within the Arab nationalist movement are three main ideas: that of the Arab nation; Arab nationalism; and pan-Arab unity. The 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine led to the foundation of the Arab nationalist Ba'ath Party, which asserts that the Arab nation is the group of people who speak Arabic, inhabit the Arab world, and who feel they belong to the same nation. Arab nationalism is the "sum total" of the characteristics and qualities exclusive to the Arab nation, whereas pan-Arab unity is the modern idea that stipulates that the separate Arab countries must unify to form a single state under one political system.

⁽⁴⁾ Fatah

Fatah (Arabic: فتح, romanized: Fatḥ), formerly the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (حركة التحرير الوطني الفلسطيني, Ḥarakat al-Taḥrīr al-Waṭanī l-Filasṭīnī), is a Palestinian nationalist and social democratic political party. It is the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the second-largest party in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).

⁽⁵⁾ Yasser Arafat

Yasser Arafat (August 1929 – 11 November 2004) was a Palestinian political leader. Ideologically an Arab nationalist and a socialist, Arafat was a founding member of the Fatah political party, which he led from 1959 until 2004. Fatah, which adopted social democracy and pan-Arabism as its pillars, played a critical role in the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation. Arafat saw Zionism as an aggressive, imperialist and fascist movement with its ideology, methods and organization. For liberating Palestinian lands from Israeli occupation, armed struggle is a must, he believed. Apart from Israel, the Palestinian resistance he led sometimes was compelled to fight Arab countries, including Jordan, where he left for Lebanon in 1971. Against this background, he said: “Today, I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat do not let the olive branch fall from my hand,” in his speech in 1975 at the UN General Assembly.

⁽⁶⁾ Khalil Wazir

Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir (October 1935 – 16 April 1988) was a Palestinian leader and co-founder of the nationalist party Fatah. As a top aide of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat, al-Wazir had considerable influence in Fatah's military activities, eventually becoming the commander of Fatah's armed wing al-Assifa. In October 1959, he edited a periodical called “Call of Life-Our Palestine,” published in Beirut, which came to reflect the views of Fatah. Khalil Wazir was one of the principal architects of the first popular intifada, which broke out in December 1987. He took part in leading it and in supporting it right until the time of his martyrdom.

⁽⁷⁾ LIP

Five years after May '68, during the summer of 1973, the employees of the Lip watch factory in Besançon led one of the most significant social struggles of the 20th century. “Lip Affair” designates the course and actions of a strike which took place in the Lip watch factory in Besançon. Started in the early 1970s, the struggle lasted until mid-1976 and mobilized tens of thousands of people across France and throughout Europe, notably during the great Lip march of September 29, 1973 which brings together more than 100,000 demonstrators in a ghost town. The Lip affair marks a radical change in the union tone and the rise of “spontaneous” movements widely reported in the media. It gives rise to abundant journalistic and cinematographic production presenting the company manager and the shareholders as “rotten”.

⁽⁸⁾ Sonacotra

Sonacotra, presently Adoma, is a mixed economy company, a subsidiary of the CDC Habitat group (Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations) which was created in 1956 by the French State to accommodate migrant workers. Sonacotral (National Society for the Construction of Housing for Algerian Workers) was created in 1956 to resolve the problem of unsanitary housing for workers from Algeria (around 150,000 Algerians living in slums, in particular around Paris, or in other precarious housing). To cope with the housing shortage, the company built its first foyer in 1959 in Argenteuil.

⁽⁹⁾ CDVDTI

The Committee for the Defense of the Lives and Rights of Immigrant Workers (CDVDTI, Comité de défense de la vie et des droits des travailleurs immigrés) was created jointly by members of the Movement of Arab Workers (MTA, Mouvement des Travailleurs Arabes) and their allies Geneviève Clancy and Philippe Tancelin, members of Al Assifa, the MTA's theater troupe.