Anti-Maghrebian Racism and Colonial Memory: Historical Continuities and Contemporary Dynamics

This article examines the persistence and transformation of racism against Maghrebi immigrants in France, based on several recent cases of racist violence, including the murders of Karim El Barni (2018), Djamel Bendjaballah (2024) and Hichem Miraoui (2025). These emblematic cases highlight a rise in racist acts, in a context where over 16,000 racist, xenophobic, or religiously motivated offenses were recorded in 2023, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior. The analysis is grounded in a socio-historical perspective, emphasizing how anti-Maghrebi racism is rooted in France’s colonial and postcolonial history, marked by marginalization, stigmatization, and racialization of North African workers and their descendants. The article argues that anti-Maghrebi racism should not be viewed as a sporadic social deviance, but rather as a constitutive element of contemporary French national history—one that requires rigorous interdisciplinary analysis and a political response that addresses its systemic dimensions.