ABSTRACT

Most labor migrants initially expected to be only temporary residents in France. Under the ‘rotation’ system of labor recruitment, which initially prevailed in colonized or formerly colonized regions, dependants generally remained in the country of origin, where they were supported by remittances sent home by workers in France. Even when they were joined by their families in France, many immigrant workers saw this as a temporary arrangement, at the end of which they would return to their country of origin, having saved enough to buy a more comfortable home than they could previously afford or perhaps set up a small business. Like the native population in France, they saw the migratory process as an essentially, if not indeed exclusively, economic phenomenon. In reality, it carried important cultural implications from the outset, and these have become steadily more apparent with the passage of time, especially with the development of permanent family settlement. Participation in the labor market demands at least a minimal level of acculturation, i.e. the acquisition of cultural codes prevalent in the receiving country. At the same time, immigrants carried into France a large and very different store of cultural baggage accumulated in their countries of origin. With the increasing visibility of differences of this kind, a signifi cant part of French public opinion became persuaded that immigration – particularly from Islamic countries – represented a fundamental threat to the cultural cohesion of the nation.