-9- France: The Narrow Path Emmanuel Ma Mung and Thomas Lacroix Migratory Policy and Immigration Unlike most other European countries, France has a long history of attracting immigrants. 1 Until the 1920s, France had always welcomed foreigners and often encouraged families to settle there to alleviate population shortages. Migratory policies developed in the late runeteenth century were designed to attract immi- grant settlers as weil as labourers. Until the Great Depression of 1929, a laissez- faire policy ofbenign non-intervention prevailed. The 1930s witnessed the dawn of a period of immigration restriction, which became increasingly discriminatory and stringent until 1945. After the Second World War, the government passed a law which has acted as the legislative basis for immigration policy ever since. However, tbis policy has undergone many revisions: thus, labour was imported during the 1950s and 1960s, until the borders were cIosed in 1974. The 1945 law encouraged immigration as a means of accomplishing two goals: relieving France's population deficit by stimulating 'settlement'-type immigration, and obtaining the work force needed to rebuild the country and its industrial infra- structure after the war. This process has been underpinned by a relatively easy naturalization procedure. ln 1974, however, the government officially puts an end to labour immigra- tion. The immigration of family members, though, was still authorized and comprised the major part of post-1974 entry flows. The number of immigrants increased until 1975, and then stabilized. 3 ltalian immigration, which had begun before the Second World War, continued though it decIined steadily. Immigration of Sparush labourers started in the 1950s and the flow stabilized in 1960, at wbich time Portuguese immigration became significant, continuing untiJ 1974. The decoloruzation process, begun in the mid-1950s, stimulated African immigration. From the 1950s until the mid-1970s, North African immigrants would come to dominate the numbers of immigrant workers entering France. Algerian immigration hit a peak during the Algerian War and following inde- pendence. Tunisian and Moroccan immigration presented a similar pattern. - 173 -