France “un pays d’émigration”
I have written before about the problem in France of getting reliable demographic statistics, in particular about how many Muslims there are and how many French citizens have roots in North or West Africa. There now appears to be another hole: there are no figures for how many French citizens emigrate each year. Benign observation says “lots” – simply because almost everyone I speak to knows at least a couple of young people who are working in London. But astonishingly no official figure exists: no one knows exactly how many French people have left or are still leaving France to work abroad. Trying to explain this lack, today’s Rue 89 has a résumé of a 50-page report by demographer Hervé Le Bras, the whole of which is published on-line by the think-tank “En Temps Réel”. M. Le Bras, who is also a mathematician and historian, worked with Jacques Attali on the probably doomed “Liberation de la croissance francaise”.
The French, according to M. Le Bras, think of their country as a “pays d’immigration” (I suspect many British think the same of their country), a phrase which is gently flattering because one likes to imagine one’s country is a magnet for others less fortunate. The official net immigration figure has been some 52,000 a year over the past decade. In reality though, says M. Le Bras, net immigration is closer to a mere 6,000 – simply because no one counts the white French emigrants (and, he adds, few want to countenance the possibility that France might also be a “pays d’émigration”). The demographic curves established by M. Le Bras on emigration resemble those of “well-known” emigration countries such as Ireland and Portugal before they became part of the EU. That bad.
INSEE’s mistake, says Le Bras, has been to see emigrants only as previous immigrants who decided to return home. While accepting that during the years of high unemployment many young French people went to London, and then perhaps across the Atlantic, it was always said they didn’t really count as emigrants since it was assumed they would come back as soon as they could. Whether they will or not is of course in the land of conjecture. What is now clear from M. Le Bras’ researches is that fully 5% of the generation born in the late 60’s and early 70’s left France between the two census points of 1990 and 1999 and most have not come back.
Politically this is hard to swallow: public opinion says that France is “envahie par l’étranger”. Many politicians owe their votes and therefore their jobs to encouraging this notion – as I write the President is making a speech on the subject. Hervé Le Bras is one of a small band of researchers trying to explode myths about their own society. But like Michèle Tribalat’s two reports (1999 and 2004) on how many Muslims there are in France, I doubt much more will be heard of it. “Demography,” says Le Bras, “is a perfect illustration of the dangers of French conservatism, marked by a great difficulty in analysing deep changes in French society.”
March 11th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Hi,
About the number of french living in UK, if the precise numbers are not available in France, probably would it be able to found them in UK.
But about the people I know who spend a time in UK (to work or to study), all of them came back to France to build their family and have childrens.
How many UK citizens are now living in France and for what reasons? I doubt that you will found precise numbers even in UK.
Didier
March 11th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Yes, that is exactly what Hervé Le Bras did - he got the figures off the host countries and compared that to the number who had “disappeared” between the 1990 census and the one ten years later. As to your second point I am not sure you’re right. Certainly my two (French) step-sons who went independently to London and one then to Toronto, are both married to non-French wives and are well-settled in careers out of France. They may come back, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
I think there is a Home Office statistic on the number of UK citizens living abroad - I’ve heard it quoted but can’t remember what it is. Whether there is one specifically for UK citizens living in France I am not sure - the figure bandied about is 500,000 houses owned by UK citizens and 300,000 living full time, but I don’t know if that’s accurate.
March 11th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
I’m British but have lived in France for the last 8 years and as far as I know the Home Office have no record that I’m here as I’ve never told them or the Embassy although maybe they have a record from when I last renewed my passport in Paris (although they wouldn’t know if I’d since gone back to the UK. Likewise with no need for a carte de sejour I’m not sure the French authorities know I’m here (for complex reasons I still pay tax & NI in the UK as technically I’m here on a secondment )
So how reliable are any of these figures ?
March 12th, 2008 at 3:39 am
Tim, a full 10% of the British population lives abroad. 200,000 live in France.
Besides, 1 in 5 say they’d rather be… French. Like, born there!
In addition, almost a third (32%) of those under 50 say they’d prefer to live in France.
And even more of them, 37%, say they’d like to move there after they retire.
Check your own numbers before bashing others!
March 12th, 2008 at 6:36 am
I apologise if you think I am bashing anyone: that was not my intention and I can’t quite find the text which offends you. As for figures, all I gave was the questimate of how many Brits own houses and/or live in France. The thrust of my piece was Hervé Le Bras’ report on French emigration figures.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:58 am
It’s typical French-bashing: “look, their economy is so bad that they have to leave their country to come work in our great country.” It was the same thing with the burning cars issue, until we found out that there were more cars being burned in the UK than in France.
As for the Muslims in France, I’m not sure what you’re referring to, but we now have a pretty good estimate of how many there are in France: 3%!
[Note: your article is being discussed here. Feel free to join the conversation]
March 12th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Again I think you’re misunderstanding me. I have never written “look their economy is so bad they have to leave their country to come and work in our great country”. (my country by the way is France, and has been for more than 20 years). In this most recent post I was merely reporting a French demographer’s findings on the lack of emigration figures. I’m not quite sure where burning cars come into it: yes, more cars are burnt in Britain every year than in France, but as I understand it in quite different circumstances and for entirely different reasons. I am not sure the two are comparable. Indeed I believe any direct comparisons between the countries is misleading and can be dangerous (because people jump to fallacious conclusions) and I always try my best to avoid them
March 17th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Well, there is a very easy way to count these people who leave France and STAY outside : the French embassies’ registries. And the numbers in them did increase a lot.
A lot is said about the folks who don’t register with the embassy but mostly people who are planning on staying for a short while don’t bother registering at the embassy. Those who do stay longer usually register.
French people who emigrate and don’t register but stay in a foreign land forever usually just blend in. I have a yet to encounter a “frenchy town” like there are so many “little Italy” or “Chinatown”, etc.
France recognizes that fact, but from the country’s perspective, these people don’t count anymore. It’d be like the UK counting Americans…
There’s something that you are missing, and Le Bras as well: France is not France because of its population. Its current population is an amalgam of very different population that came under the rule of a sovereign. The government created this country and its people, not the other way around. That why France doesn’t care about the fact that it rules over blond or creole or catholic or muslim. The only thing the government cares about is that the population must yield to its power, that’s all.