Where is France’s Polish Community?
In a world where national identity is disappearing and where more complex identities are emerging, such a question can sound outdated. Here, however, this is not the case. Over the past few years, immigration has become one of the most important issues in Europe. France, considered as a host country for decades, is nowadays one of the countries with the most repressive immigration policy in the EU. In the last seven years, five immigration laws have been passed in its parliament. The new French political rhetoric regarding the Roma is not a new phenomenon either. After the Second World War, French immigration was characterized by an open door policy, but during the inter-war years, France, a European power in decline, was very suspicious regarding its immigrants. In the 1920s and the 30s, the immigration issue wasn’t the Roma or the North African but the Polish. It wasn’t the figure of the Polish plumber yet, which embodied popular fears about Eastern European workers during the ...