BY DEREK JEFFERS
PARIS - Several thousand people demonstrated here January 31 demanding legal status for immigrants without documents -the sans papiers - who have been fighting for their rights for nearly two years. The overwhelming majority of participants were immigrants, primarily from Africa and China.

For the first time, three of the committees of sans papiers present were linked to a trade union, the CGT. One of the demonstrators from the CGT committee of sans papiers in Seine Saint Denis, 15-year-old Zhuxing-Ting Zhu, told the Militant that the prefecture of that department had refused to give papers to virtually all of the hundreds of Chinese who had requested them. "The Chinese here believe that laws in France are not fair," she said. "[The laws] are not for equality."

In a demonstration three days earlier in front of the prefecture of the Seine Saint Denis, two Chinese immigrants were savagely beaten by police and sent to the hospital with head and throat injuries. Chinese demonstrators at the January 31 action held pictures of the beaten sans papiers and posters reading, "Police = Killers."

The action was organized by the National Coordination of the Sans Papiers, and supported by a number of unions and political organizations.  
 
 
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