Contemporary legends are collective accounts, taken and transmitted by social groups which charge them with effects of truth and transmit them as information from a sure source. Three anti-racist contemporary legends, which are ironic about prejudice rather than justifying it in a roundabout way - as is generally the case - are presented here. They are all three part of oral tradition (including accounts of personal experience), but have also inspired literary creation and short films. A review is made of their appearances and their variations in the different media. The study then examines relations between these contemporary legends and similar narrative genres (exemple, fables, trivial events, jokes). It concludes with an in-depth analysis of their common themes, which in themselves are a comment on conditions of modernity and problems posed by the existence of non-lieux (literally "non-places") : the behaviour to adopt in the public sphere and the rules of social interaction in a pluri-ethnic and multicultural society.