Migrants from the Former Soviet Union to France: A Diversity of Profiles

Abstract

[EN] France received several waves of migrants from the former Russian empire and the Soviet Union throughout the twentieth century. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, there has been a new wave of emigration to France from the region, the volume and characteristics of which remain to be better understood. In this chapter, we describe the trends and profiles of migrants from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to France since the start of the 1990s using different data sources (population census, residence permit statistics, and surveys). Migrations of CIS nationals increased in the end of the 1990s and in 2015, the number of immigrants living in France reached 167,000. Recent flows are characterized by a diversity of profiles, with important differences by national origin. These flows are predominantly female, particularly in the case of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. The situations of migrants upon arrival and in the first years in France are largely determined by the reason of their migration, mainly if it was asylum related or not.