Today's Date:

Five thousand leaflets will be distributed to schoolchildren and students in the Territoire de Belfort [eastern France] as part of the campaign to fight racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism.

The leaflets, prepared by the departmental commission on citizenship (CODAC), give definitions of the terms racism, racist act, xenophobia and anti-Semitism, and list examples of discriminatory practices. Pointing out that racism and discrimination are punishable by law, the leaflets describe what to do if a person is a victim of or witness to a racist act, from making a complaint to the authorities to contacting associations against racism and the government agency in the fight against discrimination: CODAC and the free phone-line 114.

"The Territoire de Belfort has not faced any violent racist act but one doesn't get used to seeing a swastika here and racist graffiti there," the prefect's chief of staff, Christophe Reynaud, told AFP.

On Monday, representatives of the various religions in the Territoire attended a meeting at the Prefecture to "prevent demonstrations of intolerance and recall the rules of secularism."