The Ambassadors (1976)

"Each of you is an ambassador, and we are sure that each of you will be the best ambassador of our country." This is how the film begins; a speech to emigrant workers for France. Salah left his three sisters and his mother to become an ambassador, going to work on a Defense site, wading in the mud, he works with a jackhammer. Salah wanders in search of work and housing. Coming up against racism from the owners claiming the respectability of the building and the good neighborhood, he finds himself in a hotel in the Goutte d'Or district. The year is 1971, the year the Third World acts as a political force. A time when on the international scene the Davids became aware of their power as petrol producers facing the Goliath of industrialized countries. This year, some nostalgic for French Algeria are refusing this new balance of power, and responding with villainous crimes. The body of Mehdi, friend of Salah, was found in the Canal Saint-Martin, murdered by a fascist commando, and Ali died of a bullet, killed by a racist janitor. Faced with crimes that remain unpunished, Salah and his friends organize, unite with the French working class to defend their lives and their right to work. At an identity check intended for immigrant workers, it is all together, French and immigrants, that they present themselves.