Our members from France – MRJC – and Germany – KLJB -decided to organize the local round table together, taking advantage of the annual joint meeting of the French-German Inter-Commission. So, on 25th November 2017, in Becanson-France, they joined forces and brought 45 people working in different commissions in their movements for a nice official dinner to present the results of the seminar and discuss about the current political situation and about what comes to their mind when they think about extremism, discrimination and hate. The organizing team started by explaining why MIJARC decided to deal with the subject of extremism and continued with the presentation of what happened during the study visit and the seminar. Next, they explained the most important points of the position paper “Extremism in Europe”.

As a result of the round table, the participants realized how extremism, hate and discrimination affect our daily life. They are some of the main topics in our newspapers and the reason for terrorism, wars and the #metoo-debate. They concluded that extremist attitudes have increased since a lot of refugees came to Europe. A very important point of the position paper as highlighted by the participants was that we should continue to give young people a sense of democracy by following democratic rules in our events and supporting them in developing citizenship.

Another important point was to support the idea of a shared European project, built on cooperation. The discussion were also very deep and personal and the participants discovered that everyone had been affected more or less by extremism, racism or discrimination. The members of KLJB and MRJC felt strengthened in their planning of the peace-festival “RENDEZVOUS!” in 2018. One hundred years after the end of the First World War, they want to leave a mark for peace and justice and a common European vision.

The round tables are the third and final phase of our work plan “Radically against extremism”. The work plan is supported by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe, a unique foundation supporting activities developed with, for and by young people.