Immigrant Activism in France

Immigrant rioting in France among the most disaffected youth made international headlines in 2005, but activism among immigrant groups has a long history. France has the distinction in Europe of having the greatest number of immigrants over the past 200 years. It is estimated that of the 57 million inhabitants, 14 million have either parents or grandparents who were of immigrant origin. European immigrants were most numerous until after World War II, when North Africans, most of whom are Muslims, and who now comprise about 10% of the population (from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia) came in great numbers. In addition, metropolitan France is now home to one quarter of those who were born in the French departments of Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Reunion, as well as thousands of blacks from former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa.

In order to gain political recognition and fight the social exclusion and economic marginalization experienced by immigrants, as well as the anti-immigrant propaganda of the far right, neighborhood associations were formed. Associations act as liaisons between immigrants and governmental institutions, advocate for the protection of political and legal rights, and promote the integration of their members into the society. [Page 733]Immigrant associations depend heavily on funding from the French government. Most immigrant associations receive some funding from the Fonds d'Action Social (FAS), a government funding source established in 1958. Training programs were added during the 1970s, and in the mid-1980s under the socialist government of Francois Mitterrand, efforts on the part of government agencies and neighborhood associations to improve the plight of immigrants were better coordinated, laws restricting the right of foreigners to organize associations were repealed, forced expulsions ended, and 130,000 illegal workers were regularized. Currently there are approximately 5,000 immigrant associations in existence, with SOS Racisme and France Plus as two of the most prominent. Political activity is tempered by awareness that government funding is jeopardized if the specificity of a group's politics offends the values of the French republic. Thus, many established immigrant associations suffer from a lack of credibility among the most disadvantaged immigrant youth—those rioting in French cities in November 2005.

The majority of immigrants were part of the working class until the 1970s, when the economic slowdown resulted in the loss of jobs. By the beginning of the 1990s, the unemployment rate for immigrants was twice that for “native” French nationals. Alec Hargreaves suggests that internationally, there has always been a low-skilled, poorly paid labor reserve that could be tapped in the event of need by industrialized countries. This reserve labor used to reside in colonial outposts or elsewhere in the Third World and could be recruited into France, among other countries. Currently, this reserve labor lives within the borders of the industrialized countries and can no longer be considered a temporary phenomenon. This situation produces major conflicts over citizenship status and the provision of social services.