Country Monographs: France

Abstract

African immigration in France is very different today from what it was even 20 years ago. The illiterate peasant coming from Mali or Senegal and employed in non-qualified sectors is no longer the dominant figure of the immigrant population. Today we see many people coming from African countries considered to be ‘rich’, oil producers or exporters of agricultural foodstuffs. These immigrants have a relatively high level of education and are often Christians, while the majority of former sub-Saharan migrants were Muslims. The proportion of sub-Saharan migrant women is high; sometimes they are more numerous than men. A lot of them acquired French nationality, often when they were still in their country of origin. From a cultural perspective, all these countries of origin are notable for having systems of family organisation that assign an important economic role to women. Given the fairly high levels of schooling these countries provide many of the migrant men and women have student status or held this on arrival in France, so France like other host countries receives a large proportion of highly educated African migrants (see Chapters 6 and 7).