ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to analyse the way in which immigration policies in France, based as they are on the traditional models of the family, and rearticulating as they do the traditional divisions between public and private, have reinforced racist and sexist discriminations, placing immigrant women in increasingly vulnerable and insecure positions. Women do not migrate merely to join their fathers or husbands, but have a variety of independent migratory projects including migration for study and for work and migration to seek asylum. The high profile wrangling between France and the UK over the Red Cross camp for asylum seekers at Sangatte, near Calais has highlighted the importance of the refugee/asylum-seeker issue for European government. Increased insecurity for immigrant women is also caused by the fact that French law considers that in all matters relating to personal status a foreign person should be subject to the law of their country of origin.
