Antisemitism, Islamophobia and the Search for Common Ground in French Anti-Racist Movements since 1898

The dawn of the twenty-first century was a testing time for ideals of a united front against racism in France, witnessing sharp disagreements among antiracists about the relative importance of antisemitism and post-colonial racism, including Islamophobia. A flashpoint for this debate was in 2004, when France's best-known antiracist groups publicly broke ranks over precisely such a faultline. This chapter aims to set this acrimonious debate in a much longer-term historical context, by asking whether the opposing positions of what have been referred to as the 'Four Sisters' of French antiracism can be explained by truly irreconcilable approaches.