French Immigration Policies

Chapter 3

Immigration and its impacts in France
Jean-Paul Gourévitch

To give a summary of immigration to France and an analysis of its impact that will provide lessons for Canadian immigration policy in the compass of one short chapter will require me to schematize and take shortcuts, for which I ask you to excuse me.1 In this chapter, I will first survey the various aspects of immigrationin France—demographic, economic, societal, and political-geopolitical—and then dwell more on the first two of these, which reflect my personal research. After that, I will go more quickly over the qualitative aspects, which are observations I am sharing with other specialists.
1  d This chapter was translated by Élisa-Line Montigny from the French of the author’s presentation at the conference,“Canadian Immigration Policy: Reassessing the Economic, Demographic and Social Impact on Canada, Montreal, QC (June 3–4, 2008). For a discussion in greater depth and detailed information, please see the author’s recent publications: first, Les migrations en Europe: Les réalités du présent, les défis du futur (2007); second, an extended discussion of the same subject in a report for the Council ofEurope on sub-Saharan migrations, L’immigration en provenance d’Afrique subsaharienne (2008, April 18), which was adopted unanimously by the deputies; third, a monograph on the true cost of immigration in France, Le coût réel de l’immigration en France (2008), produced by Contribuables Associés, one of the few French think tanks with the courage to raise these disagreeable topics.www.fraserinstitute.org  d  Fraser Institute  d  41

42  d  The effects of mass immigration on Canadian living standards and society

The demographic approach
Who are the immigrants? In France we have three different concepts in speaking of immigration. The term “immigrant,” according to the definition given by the Haut Conseil à l’Intégration, our institution of reference, designates persons born abroad toforeign biological parents who have decided to settle on a long term or permanent basis in France. “Immigrant” thus stands in opposition to “native.” The term “foreigner” applies to persons who do not have their normal residence in France, who have not—or not yet—decided to settle there and who can consider returning to their countries of origin or leaving for another country. “Foreigner” standsin opposition to “French.” Some immigrants have obtained French nationality. That makes them both French and immigrants. Others have not sought French nationality or have not obtained it. They are immigrants and foreigners. “Persons of foreign origin” is a term designating the children of these immigrants, born abroad or in France. These two categories do not have the same status. Children bornabroad are viewed as immigrants. Children born in France, since the time of Lionel Jospin, the Socialist prime minister (1997–2002), will automatically be French at age 13, 16, or 18 unless they ask specifically not to be.2 How many of them are there? The institutes in charge of statistics in France, in particular the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE, Institut national dela statistique et des études économiques) are responsible for providing a picture of the French population and the place held by immigrants in our country. But the INSEE has a very particular concept of immigration: in the under-18 group, it includes only those born abroad. It thus adds the 2% of the population who are under 18 and born abroad to the 9.5% of the population who are immigrants over18, leading it to deem that there are 4.93 million immigrants out of a French metropolitan population estimated at 60.86 million inhabitants in 2006.
2  d This is consistent with the fact that their parents or the young themselves may seek French nationality before the legal limit of 18 years.
Fraser Institute  d  www.fraserinstitute.org

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