A group made up of different organizations, associations and activists in different areas of France who represent and come from immigrant families and neighborhoods. The MIB gathers together these different groups who each have different forms of action, in order to make a unified, autonomous and self-organized movement of 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants.

The MIB was founded by 2nd generation immigrant youth in the 1980s in Paris and Lyon. Their goal was to remind people and teach the history of their parents’ struggles in France in the 1960s and 1970s. Inheritors of an immigrant history that is composed of strikes and actions against racist crimes and violence, as well as bad work and living conditions, the MIB now carries on this tradition with a focus on media (internet, documentaries) and demonstrations and debates. Their goal is to deal with questions that concern residents and immigrant families and to fight against the mainstream media and the police treatment of their issues and events that take place in their neighborhoods. An important aspect of the MIB is its membership: more than half of the organizers have directly experienced racist crimes or been oppressed by racist laws, like the “double peine” (double sentence). This is when an illegal immigrant must sit out a prison sentence before being expulsed…One of the main activities of the MIB is to speak out and fight against this unjust law.

Their base and concentration is on the “banlieues”, which are the suburban neighborhoods of big cities like Paris and Lyon. The “banlieues” are made up of many “cités” or housing projects where low-income families live, most of which are immigrants. These neighborhoods are central to many political and media debates on juvenile delinquency and “interior security”. The MIB serves as an organizing power for those who live in these neighborhoods, as well as a counter defense to the stereotypical image that is given of the inhabitants.

Some of the latest actions include a documentary film and a number of demonstrations and debates done about a young Arab teenager, Youssef Khaïf, who was shot dead at point blank by a policeman who had stopped him with a stolen car in 1991. Ten years later, the policeman was put on trial in September 2001and acquitted shortly after. The MIB, together with IM’media, an independent and autonomous press agency, made a documentary about the trial and the aftermath. The MIB website also followed events and posted different articles and texts on the issue. There is also a petition against the acquittal on the website as well as in-depth information about the events leading up to and resulting from the trial. The MIB has also gathered much support and aid for the family of Youssef and has organized a number of demonstrations and debates in the neighborhoods, but also in central areas of Paris. Besides Youssef, the MIB did similar support actions for Aissa Ihchih who was beaten by police in the banlieue of Mantes La Jolie and who died of an untreated asthma attack while in prision.

In addition to this kind of action, the MIB organizes and participates in demonstrations and actions for a free Palestinian state, as well as anti-racist demonstrations against the National Front and other extreme right groups. They also support the struggles of the “sans-papiers” (illegal immigrants) and their movement to be “regularized”.

Since Spring 2002, the MIB have joined with a number of different autonomous groups to renovate and set up their centralized offices in an old building in a neglected neighborhood in Paris. The other groups are IM’media (cited above); ZALEA TV, a community, associative television channel; Fréquence Paris Plurielle, a once pirate community radio station; and a few multimedia activist groups.

By uniting their forces, the MIB aspires to reach out to other anti-racist groups who may be isolated in their regions or who have not been able to unite with others. The MIB does a radio show on FPP and also occasionally broadcasts the documentary work that they do on ZALEA TV or in local projections.

They have also produced a mix rap tape with rapper activists who have worked voluntarily with the MIB to gain support and participation. They have done two concerts in 1997 and 1998 and organize a number of different activities as well: stands in festivals, radio shows, public meetings with concerts, etc. All of these actions work towards the goal of gathering people together in their fight against racism and injustice.