A History of the Food of Paris by Jim Chevallier

Author:Jim Chevallier [Chevallier, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2018-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

Immigration in Paris

They live among themselves, not mixing with the population, eat and sleep by the roomful like soldiers camping in enemy territory . . . eight, ten, fifteen to a room. . . . The same room lodges two roomfuls; one by day, one by night. The team going to work is immediately replaced by the one returning.7

This 1885 portrait of Italian workers shows how one of the first major immigrant groups in Paris was viewed. In 1892, Levasseur wrote “more foreigners come than before to settle in France.”8 Since 1851, he said, immigration had tripled. Belgians, Italians, Germans, Spaniards, and Swiss made up the largest groups (respectively, 43, 24, 9, 7, and 7 percent). He went on to say that these populations were growing even as the French declined. “Soon,” some said, “the French population would only be recruited among foreigners.” They were also, he said, driving down salaries, competing with the poorer French workers. These first immigrants then, all European, were viewed much as subsequent immigrants have been in more than one country.

At the end of the century, Paris had by far the most foreign residents of the major cities in Europe.9

By World War I, a small Arab community already lived in Paris.10 During World War I immigrants were brought in from the colonies, but only for work outside Paris. Still, a few made their way there. In 1919 and 1920 police searched Arab neighborhoods in Paris and deported unauthorized immigrants.

An increasing number of immigrants came after the war, many from Poland and Italy. By 1924, 120,000 Italians, 98,000 Belgians, 39,000 Spaniards, and 33,000 Poles lived in the department of the Seine. But only 9,000 Moroccans, 2,400 Chinese, 600 Tunisians, and 11 “Annamites” (Indochinese) were noted. Algerian workers were needed but kept segregated from most other workers and few ultimately stayed. Tyler Stovall stated that “World War I provided the first example of the introduction of a large population of people of color into metropolitan France, and the reaction to this experiment was overwhelmingly negative from most parts of French society.”11 From the 1920s through the 1930s, Portuguese immigrants were common.12

After World War II, the government first encouraged immigration, especially from Algeria, then still part of France.13 Immigration was closely controlled at this point. Starting in 1956, it became more spontaneous. After it gained independence in 1962, immigration from Algeria actually increased. Portuguese immigrants returned in 1960, despite, until 1970, the resistance of their own government.14 Meanwhile, in 1969, changes in the job market led the government to try to control immigration, which, in 1973, was officially suspended. Yet subsequent years have seen increased immigration from several countries, largely in response to political or social crises there, often met with protests from French trade groups, resulting in shifting policies over the decades.15

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