A/53/269 30. This section primarily concerns the countries already visited by the Special Rapporteur and countries or regional organizations on which specific information has been received by the Special Rapporteur. A. France 31. The problem of undocumented aliens mentioned in the Special Rapporteur’s reports to the Commission still exists in France: 70,000 of the 150,000 applications submitted for the regularization of the status of such aliens were rejected. It should be noted, however, that Charles Pasqua, former Minister of the Interior during whose term of office the immigration control laws were adopted, proposed in July 1998, in the wake of France’s World Cup victory, that the status of all undocumented aliens should be regularized. France has discovered once again that it is a multiracial and multicultural society. Fifty-three per cent of those polled for a survey conducted by the French Public Opinion Institute (Institut français d’opinion publique), the Journal du Dimanche and Le Monde endorsed the proposal. 32. This cannot hide the fact that racism persists in France. As demonstrated by a recent opinion poll of the French National Commission on Human Rights (Commission national consultative française des droits de l’homme), 38 per cent of all French men and women say that they are openly racist, 27 per cent feel that there are too many Blacks in France, while 56 per cent feel that there are too many Arabs. Therefore, much remains to be done to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. B. Brazil 33. Pursuant to article 68 of the Constitution, on 20 November 1997 the Palmares Foundation (Ministry of Culture) granted title of ownership to one of the 5,000 Afro-Brazilian communities that occupy the quilombos. According to officials contacted by the Special Rapporteur, the Government and the Palmares Foundation recognized the topographical surveys and legal studies on the delimitation of the 3,158.11 hectares of land occupied by the Afro-Brazilian communities of the Ivaporunduva quilombo in the municipality of Eldorado in São Paulo state.2 To guarantee their legal rights, the other population groups and communities concerned would like similar measures concerning them to be taken through the legislative process, as provided for by the Constitution, and not through decrees. C. Colombia 34. Pursuant to Act No. 70 of 1993 relating to land ownership rights of the Afro-Colombian communities and the protection of their cultural identity (see E/CN.4/1997/71/Add.1, paras. 15 and 16), the Colombian Government granted 700,000 hectares of land to 110 AfroColombian communities in the Antioquia and Choco regions (resolution No. 4566 of 29 December 1997 of the Colombian Institute for Agrarian Reform (Instituto Colombiano de la Reforma Agraria). 35. The Special Rapporteur welcomes this measure, which is in response to one of the recommendations of the report on his mission to Colombia. He hopes that the Colombian Government will continue its efforts to implement the other recommendations. In this regard, he urges the Government to contribute to the implementation of projects initiated by the 8