ABSTRACT

In the general debates about whether a labor shortage impeded French industrialization, immigration has been seen as a major source of incremental supply satisfying labor requirements in modernizing industries. According to this view, foreign labor was necessary for these industries because it was difficult and costly to lure French peasants into these new jobs. Thus, labor market flexibility was provided by immigrants. Even if the view that French natives were unwilling to move into these new jobs were correct, this reluctance to move would still not have impeded French industrialization to the extent that foreign labor was easy to tap. This point has been made by Kindleberger (1964:367) who wrote: “There was no labor scarcity up to 1895. Thereafter local labor scarcities in the north and east were met by immigration, at the same time that the rural exodus in the south and west provided France with functionaries, both civil and military.”