ABSTRACT
In France throughout the last century migration has occurred hand-inhand with deep-rooted economic and social change. The fundamental transformation of a peasant economy into a powerful capitalist nation has brought in its train a fundamental shift of population from rural to urban areas, and more recently, a major influx of population from abroad. In the last 20 years, however, a number of significant changes in the pattern of French demographic evolution have occurred. In common with much of the rest of western Europe, migration rates have slowed after the economic recession of the early 1970s; foreign labour immigration has all but halted; and since the peak of the mid-1960s the birth rate has hovered around or just below replacement level (Findlay & White 1986). At the same time, the first signs of a major turnround in internal migration patterns have become evident, with a marked decline in the population of large urban settlements and an unprecedented increase in rural populations.
