SOS Racisme actually functioned as a Mitterrand-created instrument to blunt youth protest

Evidence

Critics of SOS Racisme therefore rebut the myth of the apolitical founding fathers and see the organisation, rather, as a Machiavellian creation of Mitterrand’s inner circle aiming to defuse a preceding series of mobilisations by North African youth. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 1375

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s overall ‘shared story’ thesis on how antiracist organizations were politically instrumentalized on the French Left, and to the MRAP-PCF satellite relationship described elsewhere in the chapter.