Contenu du sommaire : Etre étranger à la campagne

Foreign Immigration in the Rural World between the Two Wars For a few years historians have begun to highlight the essential role played by immigration in the economic development of France, particularly in industry, since the end of the nineteenth century. The purpose of this article is to show that immigration has also been an important factor in the transformation of French agriculture after the first World War. It examines the economic trends and the structural causes which explain why it has so often been necessary to resort to foreign labour and on such a large scale. The various elements it consists of as regards the nationalities represented as well as professional statutes and recruiting regions are studied in detail. A brief survey of the life conditions of this immigrant population is given before concluding on the specific role it has played in transforming French agriculture.

The Status of Foreigners in the French Countryside The legal norm first defines the foreigner ; then it gives him a statute, thus expressing the official attitudes of welcome or rejection, integration or assimilation. The rural dimension reinforces the exemplarity of the legal speech for the state regulates the relationship with the land. To begin with, French law seems to be less favourable to the rural foreigner than to the urban one. The former takes possession of a part of the territory ; the latter makes the country richer. This trend has proved to be true after World War II. Then French law has always selected "its" foreigners and offered a special statute to some of them, having resorted for a long time to selective assimilation techniques which prevail today as a consequence of European treaties.

Foreigners, New Actors in the Local Land Market. A Case Study : the Tarn Department Within the context of social reconstruction of the French rural space, foreigners have played a more and more active part in the land market at the end of the 1980s. Issued mainly from Northern Europe, this immigration wave is due to the search for residential surroundings and a way of life. The attractive prices of the land market and the vast property stock make the French countryside attractive for that population. When they buy old houses they seem to guarantee the safeguard of the local patrimony but they also appear as formidable rivals on the market of traditional housing. A recent study in the Tarn department enables one to measure the importance of such a phenomenon.

The English round the Corner The English are more and more numerous in French rural districts as the evolution of figures in the 1982 and 1990 censuses shows. Based on an enquiry made among those immigrants, this article examines their motivations and wonders why they have chosen to settle in France. It analyses the relationship between the newcomers and the communities which welcome them and it underlines the radical gap between those who try to become integrated and those who want to recreate the English way of life in France.

Dutch Farmers in France A few thousand Dutch farmers have settled in France for several generations. Their experience is a mixed success. After a probatory period of three years, the usual delay after which they give up and return home, their integration is generally quite satisfactory and their abilities are acknowledged. Yet sometimes they had to wait for about ten years to make profits, for Dutch farmers cannot take advantage of the credits which are allocated to their French counterparts.

To Be or not to Be a Native of Montségur How can one in a village define the foreigner's nature - that is to say the nature of one who does not belong by birth to the local community - which is set forth whenever there is a conflict about the vocation and the running of the place ? Is it emphasized on purpose and how ? Conversely how do lifelong natives understand the way foreigners behave and express themselves ? Our study deals with Montségur, a spiritual centre of Occitanie whose castle attracts second home owners and tourists. Their great numbers have led the inhabitants to regard local identity as something which is no longer based on birth but on adherence to a programme of local development.

New Inhabitants in a Medium Mountain District This article deals with a medium mountain area with a strong rural identity which has witnessed important migrant waves for about ten years. In their imagination the newcomers project their wishes on the territory which welcomes them. The local surroundings, through what they come to symbolize, then constitute the setting in which they look for their identity. The specificities of the territory take on a new significance. However their preservation proves necessary to answer the expectations of the new inhabitants. By participating in the restructuration of local territories, the latter make the creation of a new territoriality possible.

A Political Refugee Rooted in the Beauce In a central market-town in the Beauce, characterized by an important renewal of its population, a former Spanish political refugee has held the position of mayor and regional council member since 1978 and 1979. To begin with, the author analyses the rank assigned to foreigners in the social structure of the village on the basis of the political and identity representations. Then he describes the social and political path followed by this former farm-labourer in a constantly evolving small town.

Villagers and Migrant Workers from Casalvieri (Italy) This study deals with the migrant population of Casalvieri, an Italian village located at the junction of three regions, Abruzzi, Molise and Campania. The article shows how the bonds between groups of migrant workers in the Paris area and their native village are maintained or cut. From the 1960s, the man who went back to his village to get married has had to choose between bringing his whole family to France and going back to his native village. These families organize their lives between France and their village according to a "shuttle" rhythm. Henceforth, at Casalvieri, this newly acquired singularity is stressed by the opposition "we/you".

The Closest Strangers : Children in State Care Children in state care, traditionally welcomed in the Morvan region, hold an important place in local culture. Participants in the demographic life of the community, as a result of their numbers and their youth, they also contribute to the economic life, first, through the wages paid by the state to wet-nurses for their upbringing and, later, through the work they do when older. The fact that they are "children in care" and thereby rootless and homeless orphans, creates above all two possibilities as far as family relationships are concerned : either an assimilation with children being "almost" members of the host family, "like" a son or a sister, or the maintenance of an insuperable otherness with lonely children having no family connection and being excluded from social exchanges.

The Know-How of Swiss Cheese-Makers in the East of France (1850-1950) The emigration to France of Swiss stock-breeders and cheese-makers followed individual and family patterns and was a means of social promotion based on technical skills. This immigration contributed to the introduction of a new cheese - emmental - to the evolution of cheese cooperatives and the development and improvement of stock-breeding. The economic and social success of Swiss cheese-makers implied complete harmony with the local surroundings. It did not only result from the fact of being "neighbours" and of having immigrated many years before but also from the participation of the Swiss in local life and their desire to become integrated, which could not be dissociated from the love and loyalty they felt for their mother-country.

Immigrant Wage-Earners Working in Greenhouses Used for Growing Vegetables For thirty years agriculture has mechanized productive tasks and suppressed paid work. Why, in such a context, is the sector of vegetables grown in glass greenhouses one of the few where paid labour is resorted to on a very large scale ? Employed to look after the vegetables and package them, these workers, who are often immigrants, are trained on-the-job in firms which have reached an advanced technological level. How can we account for such a situation which reveals a complete discrepancy with what business executives say when they assert that they need highly qualified labour ? This text sums up the results of a survey made in a heterogeneous sector which is seldom studied.

Dynamics of Integration in the Agriculture of Provence Mediterranean agriculture in France is not only geographically but also demographically defined, by the systematic use of foreign workers from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Turkey and even Egypt. In the zone studied, the wine-producing region of the Côtes du Rhône to the south of the Drôme in the early 1970s, producers have replaced ageing Spaniards with Moroccans. In a number of communes, Maghreb families amount to near 10% of the population. As a result of detailed surveys undertaken in 1988-1989, and in 1991, the integration of these families (in terms of housing, employment, health and education) has been examined as well as renewed forms of immigration. The surveys reveal a growing urban orientation, that the issue of youth unemployment becomes crucial from 1994 on and that the principal difficulty is not the integration of children but rather of their parents.

Innovations Brought by Foreigners in Rural Districts around Nantes at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century In the rural districts around Nantes which started changing from 1820-1830, firms run by people who were not natives of the region gave an impetus to technical progress and to the transformation of social life. Two different experiences are analysed : that of a community made up of British monks and former French émigrés, and that initiated by a shipowner of Dutch origin from Nantes and developed by an Alsatian, Jules Rieffel. The former, on an autarkical basis, met with a quick but brief success. The latter, closely connected with the social background, was to mark all the agricultural development of the west of France in the nineteenth century.