Controlled immigration from the start

7The circumstances in which Algerians moved around and settled in mainland France before independence have already been the subject of numerous studies and will therefore be summarized only briefly here. [19] During the First World War, travel restrictions into France were eased for the first time. A law passed on July 14, 1914 abolished the travel permit, which until then had been required for any “indigenous” Algerians who wished to travel to France. [20] During the war, more than 120,000 Algerians were sent to France to work in factories or to go to the front. But immediately afterwards, travel between Algeria and France became a matter of conflict between colonial and business interests on the one hand and representatives of “the Muslims” on the other. The first pressed the government to halt the flight from Algeria of a workforce regarded as essential to the colony’s economy. The repatriation of Algerian soldiers and workers was ordered as from 1919, and in 1924 measures were taken by the general government to control the movement of Algerians, at a time when foreign migrants were entering France in large numbers. From this moment on, they had to present a medical certificate as well as an employment contract. The Algerian workers, for their part, lodged an appeal and the Council of State handed down a judgement on June 15, 1926 determining that the general government had exceeded its powers. [21] In August 1926, new decrees put restrictions on arrivals. [22] At the request of Muslim elected representatives, the left-wing Popular Front alliance lifted these restrictions and for the first time allowed Algerian women to enter France. [23] The many barriers put in their way since 1919 nonetheless kept their numbers down. In 1936, when there were nearly two million foreigners in France, there were less than 100,000 Algerians. Further barriers were erected in 1938, this time for public health reasons and because of unemployment in France. Arrivals were again strictly controlled during the Second World War.

8The situation changed radically after the war. From 1947, all Algerians, both men—by now French citizens—and women were completely free to travel between Algeria and France, whatever their employment situation and status. In this context, the number of Algerian migrants settling in France grew rapidly: from 22,000 in 1946 to 220,000 in 1954, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Institut nationale de la statistique et des études économiques, or INSEE). Rising demands for independence and the first fighting on Algerian soil led to new restrictive measures, although this did not prevent the number of Algerians in France from growing to 350,000 by the end of the war. In 1956, the authorities introduced a travel permit for Algerian workers wanting to go home for their holidays. This was intended to restrict potential fighters returning to Algeria, and as a result some workers remained in France, where they were joined by their families.

9Although many of the new arrivals were taken in by relatives, private organizations—subsidized by the Ministry of the Interior, which thus subcontracted social action—were created for their welfare and supervision. These organizations directed the new arrivals to hostels and jobs. They included the Association for Overseas Workers (Association pour les travailleurs d’outre-mer), which met the ships coming into Marseille, and the Lyautey committees, based at the Lyon railways station and later at Orly Airport. Most significantly, measures were taken to get rid of living accommodation that brought discredit to the French state: Sonacotral, the national construction society for Algerian workers and their families, was founded in 1956 to rehouse the inhabitants of shanty towns in hostels (for lone men) and cités de transit (for families). However, personal data collection and rehousing often created opportunities for widespread operations of control and repression.

10Special arrangements were accorded to immigration into France from Algeria because of its colonial status, but the period between the wars saw the beginning of forms of supervision, control and repression that became more pronounced with the war of independence. At the same time, a new welfare policy was introduced for Algerian immigrants, which was broadened out after independence to include all foreign migrants. However, independence did not lead to a true normalization of the status of Algerians when compared with other foreign immigrants.

Aspects of continuity and disruption after Algerian independence

11Independence did not transform Algerians into ordinary foreigners, and the status of migrants from the former empire entailed both advantages and disadvantages. In some respects, the Évian Accords worked in their favor. In a form of continuity with the colonial period, freedom of movement and permission to settle was guaranteed, while Algerians benefited from the same rights as the French, apart from political rights. As regards access to employment, they were not subject to the same restrictions as ordinary foreigners and could remain or become lawyers, doctors, shopkeepers, artisans, or even bar license holders.

12There was also a provision to allow them to request their “reintegration into French nationality.” According to officials responsible for colonial migrants, such requests for recognition were made by “Algerians who had been living in France for several years, who might own or rent their apartments, and whose families were situated outside the areas of influence where their co-religionists gathered.” [24] They were however very small in number, despite the fact that the option was extended until 1968. Most did not want to take that route either because they did not want to “betray” the Algerian nation or sometimes, more prosaically, because they feared it would mean they would be unable to return to Algeria. However, in 1965 refusing the option meant the loss of permanent employment status for all Algerians who worked for local authorities, especially garbage collectors—who counted many Algerians among their number. From then on, they became casual workers, losing many of their benefits (holidays, bonuses, pensions, and so on).

13In another example of continuity, organizations for the social welfare and oversight of “French Muslims from Algeria” (FMA), created in the context of the war of independence, did not disappear but gradually expanded to include all foreign immigrants. These organizations included Sonacotral (renamed Sonacotra in 1963); the Social Action Fund (Fonds d’action sociale, or FAS) in 1964; [25] as well as the Service for Muslim Affairs and Social Action (Service des affaires musulmanes et de l’action sociale, SAMAS), which in 1965 became the Service for Migrant Liaison and Promotion (Service de liaison et de promotion des migrants). [26] The Technical Assistance Services (Services d’assistance techniques), responsible for administrative and police supervision of Algerians during the war of independence did not vanish either, and extended their operation to include migrants from the former colonial empire. [27] These organizations, seeking to maintain their raison d’être, continued to produce negative assessments of Algerians, especially the latest arrivals. A SAMAS report from 1965 expressed the view that:

14

Including Algerians and Africans within the general category of foreigners has often resulted in social services becoming aware of the specific problems posed by this group of people, whether because of difficulties in getting information about them from their countries of origin (town halls, family allowance, or social security offices), or because of the resources and time needed to help this group to integrate as compared with foreign workers of European origin. The maintenance of appropriate social welfare arrangements is justified by these differences, which in terms of the Algerians have become more of an issue in the last two years or so, as contingents of new migrants have inferior levels of health, language, and employability than those of previous years. [28]

15Although these allegations were not in any way substantiated, they were widely disseminated with the aim of convincing the government to review the Algerians’ freedom of movement and permission to settle.

16This is exactly what happened after 1965, a date that represented a defining moment—much more significant than 1962—for Algerians wanting to work or settle in France. Between 1964 and 1965, at the time of the Franco-Algerian diplomatic negotiations, the crux of the debate was labor immigration. Although the question of existing Algerian immigrants’ freedom to settle could not be reopened, since they did not need a residence permit to travel and reside in France, steps were taken to control entry into the country. Despite Algerian reservations, the Nekkache-Grandval Accord of April 1964 created a new body, the National Office for Algerian Labor (Office national de la main-d’œuvre algérienne), responsible for the selection of workers. This was coupled with a French medical examination, ending the free immigration that had characterized the end of the colonial period. But this measure had little effect. In 1965, after the coup d’état initiated by Houari Boumédiène, who rejected the new French immigration proposals, the French authorities introduced unilateral administrative measures. A return ticket and a deposit of 500FF were required for entry to the country, then an individual tourist visa was introduced, prior to a limit of 200 a week being placed on the number of Algerian tourists—who were made to await entry in separate lines. This time, these measures had a tangible effect on the number of Algerians entering French territory. Kassa Houari, who arrived in 1968 at the age of fifteen, remembers:

17

Routine deportation certainly gave pause for thought to those thinking about leaving. There were very few who tried it on. Most were content to register properly with the specialized French and Algerian organizations. If you wanted to put your name on a list of prospective emigrants, sometimes you had to wait at an office for five days. [29]

18To get around these restrictions, the migrants took alternative routes, like Lamine Z., who arrived from El Oued in 1966 via Tunisia because he feared he would be sent back if he came directly from Algeria. [30]

19As the following table shows, net migration diminished in 1965 as a result of these measures, rather than immediately after independence:

20The Franco-Algerian Agreement of December 27, 1968 marked a new development in the control of Algerian immigration. Until then, theoretically Algerians had only needed an Algerian passport to live in France. Now they were required to have a certificate of residence, equivalent to the residence permits for foreigners under the general regulations. These certificates were principally intended to enable stricter police control over the Algerian population, whose freedom to settle was now called into question and limited by the fact that the certificates were only valid for five or ten years. On the other hand, the documents allowed residents to travel freely between France and Algeria without fear of being refused entry at the end of their holidays, since Algerian immigrants could now offer proof that they were entitled to live in France. At the time, the demographer Georges Tapinos noted in the journal Population that the introduction of the residence certificate led to unprecedented movement between the countries: 35 to 40% of Algerian residents exited and entered French territory in 1970, whereas previously they had not dared to do so without a guarantee that they would be allowed to return. [31]

The issue of families

21It was not only men who were subject to a restrictive immigration policy. The treatment of women and children—whose arrival was seen as a threat in terms of long-term settlement—is particularly revealing of the way Algerians were perceived in France. Judged to be incapable of integrating, families were subject to selection processes from independence until the 1980s.

22After the Second World War, the Ministry for Public Health and Population, and later the Ministry of the Interior, began to have concerns about women arriving to join their husbands, and started counting them. There were around 3,500 in 1952, 6,000 in 1954, and 25,000 in 1962. [32] Non-governmental organizations encouraged the women to settle, seeing this as a way of helping Algerians to become integrated. But while these organizations played an important role in developing a range of social action initiatives on behalf of the FMA and in defining the Algerian “housing problem,” their impact on policy-making remained limited. They did not succeed in influencing the development of a genuine Algerian family immigration policy, and no official measures were taken to encourage the arrival of families—while during the same period Italians were strongly urged to bring their wives and children into the country. [33] From 1961 onwards, administrative measures were even put in place to prevent families entering the territory unless the head of the family (already established in France) had suitable accommodation. But this ruling was revoked after independence.

23During negotiations that sought to reopen the question of Algerians’ freedom to travel and settle in France, the issue of families was secondary to the issue of workers but met with consensus between France and Algeria. The Algerians were not in favor of families settling in France because it led to a reduction in the number of money orders sent back by lone workers. The French authorities, for their part, used the growth of shanty towns to justify the 1964 reintroduction of a “housing certificate”—not to be confused with the residence certificate—which families coming to settle in France were now systematically required to produce upon entry. The selection criteria were rigorous. Housing must correspond to norms in terms of floor area and specific amenities while at the same time rent was not to exceed 15% of the salary commanded by the head of the family, excluding benefits. This measure was clearly a deterrent to workers who were for the most part unqualified and poorly paid, especially since Algerians, unlike other foreign immigrants, did not receive financial aid to bring their families over. The housing certificates were at first issued by local authorities, but after 1965 they were put under the control of the Department of Health and Social Affairs. Detailed social investigations were carried out at the homes of applicants by social welfare organizations (social workers from the North African Family Social Service in the Loire region; former social work advisors on North African matters in the Seine region) or by the police (in regions where there were few Algerians). Algerian families, theoretically free to travel between the two countries and to settle in France, thus found themselves bound by the same rules as foreigners managed under the general regulations—but unlike other foreign immigrants they were subject to real controls. From this it can clearly be seen that administrative policies and practices that were specific to Algerians were perpetuated after independence. While some clauses of the Évian Accords favored them, in practice their freedom to move around and settle was reduced by administrative measures that sought to select out new immigrants, at a time when agreements were being reached with other countries to increase the supply of labor and the family population. Officially justified by housing problems (which in reality are faced by all foreign immigrants), this rebuff was based on the supposed inability of Algerians to assimilate. Yet their roots in France go back a long way.

The first to settle

25Most of the 100,000 Algerians in France at the beginning of the 1930s came over for short stays and lived in relative isolation in their own communities. They lived in run-down parts of Paris (such as Maubert, and îlot Jeanne d’Arc in the 13^th arrondissement), in the working-class suburbs (Levallois, Saint-Denis, Nanterre), in lodgings provided by the factories that employed them, and in mining villages. The historian Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud has nevertheless produced studies showing that a first group of migrants began to settle in France as early as the interwar period. She examines this phenomenon through the example of the city of Lyon. [35] Omar Carlier also judges that this first tranche of “permanent” immigrants consisted not only of café owners but also of workers who had resisted the 1919 repatriation legislation and ended up staying in France on a long-term basis, even permanently. [36] They settled more quickly because of the difficulty of traveling between Algeria and France, which prompted those who had managed to enter the territory to stay put rather than risk being unable to return.

26Settlement was evident above all from the growth of mixed marriages, contracted by those men who were most detached from family or village connections. Louis Massignon noted around 6,000 mixed marriages as early as 1930 in the Paris region alone. [37] In the Mouffetard-Maubert quarter, which became home to a large Algerian community in the 1950s, [38] a few Algerians were identified in the 1931 census among other foreign and provincial French incomers. Some of these were in committed relationships with French women, including Ali Louali, a driver born in 1902 in Algeria, living at 4, Rue du Hameau with his wife Rose, a chambermaid born in 1909 in Morbihan, Brittany. In all, in the neighboring Sorbonne quarter, five mixed couples were counted, while there were no more than around ten lone males. [39] This first phase of putting down roots can be demonstrated by the fact that although most Algerians had been repatriated at the beginning of the Second World War, 20,000 to 30,000 remained settled in France for the duration.

27After the Second World War, Algerians once again entered France in large numbers. INSEE identified 22,000 “FMA” in France in 1946 and 220,000 in 1954. Although living conditions for most of them were very precarious, a small number of qualified, settled workers with sufficient income, as well as established small business owners, were able to bring their wives over. According to a survey carried out in 1951 among Algerians working for the Renault company, “the incidence of family life, whether or not in regular married couples, and whether these couples be both Muslim or mixed, increases with the level of professional qualifications and corresponding financial resources.” [40] In fact, among the Algerians at Renault, 10% of unskilled workers, 15% of semi-skilled workers, and 42% of skilled workers were living in relationships. From this time on, other factors outside work began to emerge in relation to Algerian immigration: children’s education, an indicator for social progression, became a major concern for some migrants. Some men brought sons to live with them so as to educate them: for example, in Puteaux, west of Paris, a Monsieur Benfata, who worked in one of the town’s laundries, was living with his nine-year-old son, a schoolboy, in a small old apartment block with other Algerian families. [41]

28This first wave of settlement was largely propelled by men who were more qualified than the average, living in couples, with or without children. The War of Independence and decolonization hastened the arrival of families but resulted in a deterioration of living conditions.

Rooming houses and shanty towns—accommodation for men?

29Rooming houses and shanty towns are thought of as the living arrangements typical of Algerians, especially men. Indeed, in 1954, 80,000 out of 100,000 Algerians in the Paris region were living in rooming houses. [42] These had very limited amenities and were mostly home to men, sometimes in single rooms, sometimes several to a room, often at high rents. [43] It seems that there were relatively few Algerian families living in this type of accommodation.

30Another form of living arrangement particularly associated with Algerian immigration is the bidonville, or shanty town. This form of self-built accommodation, which emerged at the beginning of the 1950s, developed because of the problems foreign and ex-colonial workers faced in finding somewhere to live, in the context of significant discrimination and a housing crisis. The shanty towns provided accommodation for a minority of Algerians (taking into account turnover, it is probable that 10 to 15% of Algerians arriving in France between the mid-1950s and 1965 spent some time in a shanty town), [44] but they were home to both single men and families. Initially the preserve of lone workers, these shacks gradually became living space for families fleeing the violence and the Algerian resettlement camps during the War of Independence. [45] Later, others joined them. The foreign or ex-colonial inhabitants of the shanty towns were not “asocial,” to use the terminology of the time, but families of factory workers or small wage-earners. In Nanterre, for example, most heads of household were unqualified laborers who had regular work, but there were also garbage collectors who were permanently employed by the Prefecture of the Seine as well as a civil servant of the Nanterre municipality, and shopkeepers who supplied the residents. [46] While living in a shanty town could hardly be seen as a preference, it had a number of advantages over other forms of low-grade accommodation because of the concentration of Algerians (offering community solidarity and specialized shops). The shacks represented a very temporary transitional habitat for families waiting for other solutions or dealing with family vicissitudes (accounts frequently describe people arriving in the shanty towns after problems with extended periods in shared accommodation). Others saw it as long-term living accommodation, where sometimes three generations lived together. Some families stayed in the shanty towns in the hope of being allocated rent-controlled housing in the same municipality, as part of slum clearance operations. In fact, legislation passed in 1970 to eradicate substandard accommodation marked the decline of the big shanty towns, but most of their inhabitants were rehoused in cités de transit, a form of low-grade temporary social housing. Before long, these living arrangements, under the control of estate managers, became just as segregated as the shanty towns. However, the cités de transit also housed only a small proportion of the Algerian population (120,000 people in 1977, among whom the Algerians were a minority, outside Marseille and the western Paris region). [47]

31In fact, while a small proportion lived in the shanty towns, most Algerian families lived in ordinary accommodation in traditional working-class districts, much of which was in poor condition, like many blue-collar homes in France at that time. A 1967 study of Algerian families in the north-east of Paris shows that 36% were in hostels, mostly in just one room, and 50% were in old buildings, with half of the families occupying two rooms and a third a single room. Out of around 100 families, thirty had no running water or sewage, eight were in attic rooms or mansards, and a further eight were living in disused properties. [48] Some however gained early access to social housing, through the FAS social action fund created especially for Algerians at the time of the War of Independence, or through their employer. The same study highlights the case of Renault, which provided lodgings for some of its employees in old buildings in Boulogne, in reserved accommodation in Meudon-la-Forêt and in new subsidized housing in Bagneux, built by the public-sector housing development organization Société Centrale Immobilière de la Caisse des Dépôts. Meanwhile, family reunification files from the Hauts-de-Seine regional administration offices show that around a quarter of families who gained entry through this process between 1966 and 1976 were accommodated in public social housing. [49]

32For the poorest workers or those forced to take in their families at short notice, the shanty towns offered an alternative to the lack of privacy in furnished rooms and rooming houses. However, from the mid-1960s, new control measures meant that families were no longer allowed to take up residence in such substandard dwellings. After 1965, the accommodation conditions imposed on Algerian immigrants wanting to bring their families to France no doubt explain why so many of them remained alone in the country. Yet in the same period, Portuguese and Moroccan immigrants could easily bring their families over, since their accommodation conditions were generally uncontrolled. Meanwhile, the dormitories set up for Algerian workers further hindered any possibility of family life.

Workers’ hostels [50]—an invitation to celibacy

33With the beginning of the War of Independence, the question of housing for Algerians—raised as an issue by social welfare organizations at the beginning of the 1950s—had become a major challenge for the public authorities. Rooming houses, often run by Algerians, and especially shanty towns were considered not only to be unworthy of France’s civilizing mission, but also to be breeding grounds for nationalist propaganda. The principal solution adopted was the worker’s hostel, a long-established strategy for accommodating the labor force. The hostels were mostly built by the joint venture company Sonacotral, [51] and were open to all foreign workers after 1963, although Algerians remained over-represented: 68% in 1973, despite only contributing 37% of lone foreign immigrants. [52] However, yet again, the importance of the hostels to Algerian living arrangements should not be overestimated: in 1977 there were thirty-one hostels for foreign workers in Paris, with nearly 7,000 beds, [53] while the Algerian population in Paris had climbed to around 45,000 men by 1973. The hostels, which were mostly on the outskirts, remained a housing option for a minority. Nationally, around 10% of the North African population lived in them. In fact, most Algerians continued to live in rooming houses before their decline in the 1970s: 32% according to the general population census conducted by INSEE in 1968. [54]

34Nevertheless, the construction of these hostels meant that foreign workers were de facto condemned to a single life. The buildings provided better amenities, but residents were subject to paternalistic discipline and encouraged to remain mobile “temporary workers,” who would not therefore be joined by their families. [55] Yet most of them stayed for several years. Their situation at the beginning of the 1980s was described as follows:

35

These long-term tenants, mostly Algerian, are moreover workers with few qualifications (for the most part laborers and semi-skilled), with low incomes and the poorest standard of living. They live a very austere life, spending their free time in the hostel, usually in their rooms or the tea shop rather than in the club café. The largest proportion of workers who do not foresee one day bringing their families to France are to be found amongst these hostel tenants. [56]

36Some of them effectively gave up on the idea of bringing their families to France, choosing instead to spend their lives hopping between France and Algeria, or even severing links with Algeria, while unable to develop a family life in France because of their living conditions.

37Among the 350,000 Algerian men who obtained a residence certificate in 1970, 40% had been living in France for more than ten years, that is to say around 140,000. [57] Yet only around 17% of Algerian male immigrants lived with a partner (40,000 with an Algerian woman, 20,000 with a French woman). [58] This situation was largely the result of their housing difficulties, for which the main remedy had been to establish hostels for single men.

The turning point at the end of the 1960s: A more favorable situation

38At the end of the 1960s, it was therefore impossible to consider the 550,000 Algerians counted by INSEE in 1968 as a unified group, although the dominant image remains that of the industrial laborer living in a rooming house or a dormitory because of the lack of professional promotion prospects. [59] Nationally, in 1971, 47% of Algerian wage-earners were laborers, that is less than half, and 11% were skilled workers (rising from 2% in 1954). The main employment sectors remained construction, public works, and the engineering industry. In addition, nearly 10% were shopkeepers, and almost 8% were students. [60] The rest were low wage earners (waiters, drivers, garbage collectors) and a very small proportion of office workers and managers.

39Among the most fortunate—and generally invisible—categories of migrants were those who successfully applied for family reunification in the Hauts-de-Seine and were permitted to bring their families over between 1966 and 1976. Among the 720 heads of household who applied, around 4% were commercial traders (one of whom ran a large tourist hotel on boulevard Saint-Michel), 5% were senior and middle managers (including some young engineers), 10% were lower level white-collar workers, 32% skilled workers, and only 30% were laborers (the rest were not specified). A third of those (36%) who applied for family reunification and succeeded in bringing their families over were migrants who had been living in France for more than ten years and who had at last managed to meet the necessary conditions despite their poor qualifications, while around 20% consisted of an intermediary group of qualified workers who had been in the country for a long time. Finally, 40% were young men, better qualified, educated in Algeria or brought up and trained in France, who brought over their wives before they had even started a family. The families who arrived in Hauts-de-Seine as a result of this process were mainly selected because of the housing acquired by the head of the household and had relatively comfortable living conditions. Of these, 30% rented privately, 14% rented from a public social housing provider, and 10% were owner occupiers (especially the shopkeepers). Most importantly, 10% lived in new or fully renovated accommodation and 55% benefited from relatively good facilities, in the sense that they had both a toilet and a bathroom. In half of the cases, the applicants had found their lodgings near their previous living quarters. They worked in the same area and their local connections probably helped them to find accommodation either through friends, municipal offices, or their employer.

40More broadly, salary increases granted after the general strike in May 1968 benefited both French and foreign workers, whose social situation improved. At the beginning of the 1970s, the French embassy in Algeria observed that holidays had become more frequent among workers’ families, and there were more cars in Algiers with French number plates. [61] Even in the shanty towns, access to the consumer society was increasing and almost all the shacks had a transistor radio. Those who had electricity sometimes even owned a television and a washing machine.

41An analysis of the status of Algerians in France after independence thus reveals a persistent flow of migrants who came for a few months or years, alongside those who settled for the long term, either alone or with their families. They became established chiefly within the framework of the municipality, or even just the local neighborhood, where both adults and children developed social networks. In fact, the presence of a growing number of children largely explains the failure of the repatriation policy in the 1970s.

Demographic shifts

43Paradoxically, efforts made to curb Algerian arrivals in France did not prevent their numbers increasing. According to INSEE’s figures, the Algerian population grew between 1962 and 1982 from 350,000 to around 810,000 individuals, and the number of families rose from 25,000 to 100,000. [62] Most significantly, despite the measures taken to limit the number of women settling, their share of the Algerian population jumped from 8% to 25% during the same period, while children made up almost 30% of the total. This growth was not linked solely to net migration, in the context of obstructions to Algerian immigration that had existed since independence. It was also the result of natural growth within this group, which had a particularly high birth rate and had been in part long-established in France. [63] Although the political leadership took no heed of this reality, it was highlighted as early as 1970 in a report by the Department of Population and Migration:

44

It is impossible not to conclude that the Algerian population in France, currently over 600,000, is likely to grow substantially in future, not so much as a result of new immigration from Algeria, which has remained moderate since 1966, but simply because of the internal dynamics generated by its age structure, its high birth rate, and the possibilities for family immigration. [64]

45The families who were (re)united in France from the 1950s onwards certainly gave birth to large numbers of children. While the figures should be treated with caution, it would nevertheless be true to say that around 130,000 children were born in France to Algerian fathers between 1946 and 1966. [65] There is no doubt that the majority of these children, who reached the age of sixteen between 1962 and 1982, remained in France and started their own families. In reality, the category identified as the “second generation” of North African immigration from the 1980s onwards actually came into being at the end of the Second World War. It is therefore incorrect to say that the growth in France’s Algerian population between 1960 and 1970 was uniquely a result of migration into French territory, a view that since the 1970s has been associated, in some minds, with the myth of an “invasion.”

46This perception is reinforced by the fact that government, the media, and even scholars generally use the aggregated results of INSEE’s census data to analyze how the number of migrants has grown in France. The aggregated results give the impression that arrivals continued apace, especially between 1962 and 1982, since the number of Algerians in France grew from 350,000 people to 810,000. However, a detailed study of this population’s structure by age and sex shows that children born in France to Algerian parents after 1963, legally French by birth, were counted as Algerians. [66] The parents, either deliberately or through ignorance of the legislation, declared them as such and INSEE failed to correct the figures. Thus, in the 1982 general population census, more than 196,000 individuals born in France to Algerian parents and aged less than fourteen years old were included among the Algerian population. Yet these, having been born after 1968, are French by birth by virtue of double jus soli. [67] Out of the 810,000 Algerians counted by INSEE in 1982, more than 200,000 (if we count the population born in France between 1963 and 1968) were in fact French. INSEE thus contributed to the perception that Algerian immigration was increasing in ever larger numbers, although many of those counted were French by birth, born to Algerian parents. This “error,” which reveals an inability at the beginning of the 1980s to think of the descendants of Algerians as French, partly explains government obsession with Algerian migration flows during the 1970s.

The government’s Algerian obsession

47Although 1974 is generally seen as the critical juncture in French immigration policy after the Second World War, the gradual closing of the borders began at the end of the 1960s. As a result of the shift in the origin of migratory flows, but also pressure from the Christian left as well as the extreme left to improve migrants’ circumstances, the government sought to limit new arrivals. Although this renewed focus on the immigration issue applied to all foreign immigrants, the Algerians were its principal target. The hostility of some senior officials and elected representatives towards this migration [68] was at the root of their willingness to listen to local objections, now expressed in terms of a risk of “concentrations” and “ghettoization.” Thus, while the institutionalization of family reunification in 1976 is often described as a “generous” policy, which aimed to compensate for the stop on labor immigration, [69] the real objective was to restrict Algerian family migration. As early as 1970, some mayors in south east France wrote to their regional prefect to ask that applications by Algerian workers for family reunification should no longer be considered. Their plea was supported by a memorandum stating that “in some areas, the continual arrival of new Algerian families presents problems of a general nature” and “it might be seen as inappropriate to encourage the further growth of an already substantial North African colony living on the fringes of the French population.” [70] The prefect of the Rhône area accordingly sought to stop family immigration in his département as early as 1970, partly as a result of pressure from the region’s mayors. [71]

48A few years later, the question of family immigration became a national issue. The Socialist politician Gaston Defferre publicly asked for its suspension in 1973. [72] Several commissions were set up from 1972 onwards, leading the government to propose ending it. An examination of the commission reports shows that Algerian families were systematically at the center of the debate, but in order to avoid open discrimination, family immigration as a whole was suspended from July 1974 to June 1975, although there were exceptions for European families. Under pressure from organizations supporting the immigrant workers, but above all because of the need to respect international and European law, in July 1976 the government finally recognized a “right to family reunification” which meant that applicants no longer had to depend on an arbitrary administrative approach. From now on, the right to stay was guaranteed to those families who met the required criteria. However, Algerian families, subject to derogation arrangements stemming from the Évian Accords, were excluded from the new process and remained at the mercy of arbitrary decisions made by officials charged with investigations. [73]

49Patrick Weil has long shown that at the end of the 1970s the Algerians were the clear targets of a policy of exclusion. In fact President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing tried to introduce a forced repatriation policy for 500,000 Algerian immigrants by not renewing their residence certificates, before he was stopped by the campaigning efforts of supporting organizations who referred the matter to the Conseil d’État. [74] This failure led the government to institute a policy to encourage voluntary repatriation, with a scheme that consisted in offering 10,000 FF (familiarly known as “the million”) to foreign immigrants who agreed to return to their country of origin. The Algerian government itself encouraged these returns. [75] Meanwhile, young men who had been found guilty of minor crimes were subjected to a particularly aggressive deportation policy. [76] When the left came to power there was a break, but a policy of voluntary repatriation was nonetheless quickly implemented.

The end of the 1970s: Discrimination and growing visibility

50The end of the 1970s, a period that has been the object of few studies, marked a critical point in the experience of Algerian families settled in France, who had until then known increasing integration without any major set-backs since the war of independence. In addition to the policies of exclusion described above, a number of factors made their situation increasingly difficult: the rise of unemployment, whose first victims were foreign immigrants; discrimination against young men trying to enter the labor market; ongoing xenophobic crime; the spread of heroin addiction which ravaged the working-class districts; and, in some areas, police harassment of young men. [77] This situation led to marginalization and instability for a section of the Algerian population. Although they had been educated in France, young men were unable to obtain more skilled employment than their fathers. While it is not possible to give precise figures, it seems that some tens of thousands of Algerians decided to settle in their home country between the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, without necessarily signing up to the official repatriation policy. [78] A move to Algeria might have looked like a second choice, but it represented a new chance. Among the twenty-seven former inhabitants of the Nanterre shanty towns interviewed in El Oued, ten departed for Algeria between 1977 and 1983. [79] The interviews show that some of them did not touch the promised “million” or did not try to obtain it, regarding it as a humiliation. Some were adults planning a career change, others were young people seeking work. One Algerian who had grown up in Nanterre, educated and holding a vocational training certificate, ended up leaving France in 1980 because he was unable to find a job appropriate to his qualification. In Algeria, he found one quickly. Yet this man still regretted leaving France, where he had enjoyed the lively social life of a young Parisian. [80]

51Such returns—sometimes followed swiftly by a new journey back to France for those who had French nationality—were nevertheless a minority. The vast majority of Algerians chose to stay in France. Central to this decision was the existence of children who were born or had grown up in France, who were in the middle of their education, and who often did not speak Arabic. Young people, with or without qualifications, some of whom managed to get junior jobs in local public services or elsewhere (secretarial, hairdressing, community activities, sewing in the case of women), did not consider returning to their country of origin. [81] This desire for inclusion is demonstrated by the explosion in the number of artists in the fields of theater and singing who were the product of Algerian immigration and claimed their place in French society. The March for Equality and Against Racism in 1983—a protest against police crimes, discrimination in the law, and in access to housing—represented the political aspect of this assertion. There were many descendants of Algerians, with both French and Algerian nationality, among the marchers, as there were among the crowds who met them when they reached Paris in December 1983. [82]

52An analysis of the situation of Algerian migrants and their descendants in France up until the end of the 1970s throws up several important points that suggest the chronology of immigration in France should be rethought. For a start, the “three ages” model needs to be significantly modified. A section of the Algerian population became settled as early as the 1930s, but this did not prevent the persistence of temporary immigration throughout the whole period. Furthermore, the co-existence of these two types of migration—temporary and permanent—does not necessarily conform with the divide between single men and families: some single men settled permanently in France, while some families returned to Algeria after a few years. This continual movement of new arrivals partly explains the specific social difficulties associated with Algerian migrants in general, although in fact they are undoubtedly related to the most recently arrived. Further, it appears that independence did not immediately end the distinct treatment of Algerian immigration. At a time when immigration was relatively open, the French authorities developed a number of strategies to restrict the growth of Algerian immigration, particularly family migration. Algerians truly have been the targets of discriminatory policies and separate practices, principally in terms of entry to the country. More broadly, Algerians have been the subject of often hostile and mistrustful statements made by government, whether publicly or in camera, and this has undoubtedly contributed to the resentment expressed today by some descendants of Algerians.

53However, despite the obstacles they faced, Algerian migrants did put down strong roots early on, and this was linked to the importance of the population of children. Their socio-economic situation improved at the end of the 1960s: notably, it seems that most families’ housing conditions became closer than is generally acknowledged to those of French working-class people at the time. The end of the 1970s marked a critical juncture that has been briefly summarized here but deserves further study. The economic crisis and rising xenophobia—both from the state and the general population—combined to jeopardize a process of social and economic integration that was already well advanced. Yet this first move towards integration was largely disguised by the government and the press, who focused on the most excluded families living in so-called “ghettos”: the cités de transit or the most run-down housing projects. As a result, most families who integrated at a local level in old and new working-class districts have simply remained invisible.