For a long time, the question of immigration and its implications for French society seemed to focus on a certain number of “symbolic” territories: Paris and large cities, certain post-industrial regions, the Mediterranean coast, etc. The recent acceleration and rapid migratory flows has, however, reshuffled the cards of this geography.
The immigrant population – understood as all people born foreigners abroad – has increased by 40% in our country since the mid-2000s. A clear observation can be established based on INSEE data: there is no There have never been as many immigrants in France as today, whether in absolute value or in relative proportion. Africa is the leading continent of origin for immigrants in France (48% of immigrants come from there); although the majority of these African immigrants remain from the Maghreb, the number of those originating from Sahelian, Guinean or central Africa has doubled since 2006.
Such dynamics have had consequences across the country. However, the scale of these issues and the transformations induced by the acceleration of migration is strongly differentiated geographically. The detailed analysis at the municipal level over a period of fifteen years attests to a rapid increase in the share of immigrants in territories among the least affected by immigration until then, with a notable shift in the Great West: Brittany, Pays de la Loire, Normandy…
The share of immigrants in the population of cities like Le Mans, Brest or Caen doubled between 2006 and 2021
The share of immigrants in the population of cities like Le Mans, Brest or Caen, for example, doubled between 2006 and 2021. If we look at municipalities with small or medium populations, even more pronounced phenomena emerge: the immigrant population of La Guerche-de-Bretagne (Ille-et-Vilaine, 4,300 inhabitants) has increased eightfold in fifteen years; in the same department, it was multiplied by seven in Vezin-le-Coquet, by six in Saint-Méen-le-Grand or in Cesson-Sévigné.
Several explanations can be given for these very marked local dynamics. They are partly due to national strategies for the “distribution” of immigration, among other things via the opening of reception centers for asylum seekers in regions whose capacities were less saturated than others – notably the Île-de-France. Furthermore, for several years certain communities have assumed the explicit choice of a local policy of broad “openness” in matters of migration, often justified by arguments combining humanitarian, economic or more strictly ideological considerations.
The rest after this ad
-Let us add to this the effect of diaspora phenomena. As demographer Gérard-François Dumont summarizes: “Immigration creates immigration […] From the moment members of a community settle somewhere, they play the role of a reception desk for other people of the same origin. »
Such trajectories can bring particular difficulties for public policies in certain territories, particularly those where the issues of unemployment and inactivity among immigrant populations are concentrated. It has been said that the share of the immigrant population in Le Mans has doubled in fifteen years; however, in this same municipality, 37.6% of immigrants are unemployed or inactive (excluding retirees and students), according to the most recent data available. The arrival of large numbers of immigrants has therefore not always been accompanied by effective absorption by the labor market and poses acutely, at the local level, the same questions as at the national level.
*Director of the Immigration and Demography Observatory.
Immigration in the territories fifteen years of upheaval (2006 – 2021), OID note, September 2024.
France
