ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the history of labour migration in France in the context of the apparent revival of traditionally relatively impoverished areas of the country. The emerging picture of French labour migration given by data from the early to mid 1980s is therefore that it is declining slightly in level, but changing considerably in composition, with an increase in migration by high level manpower, and with a growing importance of internal labour markets for larger enterprises. If comparison is made between the last inter-censal interval of major urbanisation in France and the most recent period of counterurbanisation, the net pattern of labour flows can be seen to have changed in several respects. The role of inter-regional labour migration in counter-urbanisation in France has generally been a subsidiary one. For the country as a whole, the rural revival has been brought about much more by movement unrelated to local job availability, and a crucial role has been played by retirement movement.
