Forty years of immigrant segregation in France, 1968–2007. How different is the new immigration?

Summary Analysing restricted access census data, this paper examines the long-term trends of immigrant segregation in France from 1968 to 2007. Similar to other European countries, France experienced a rise in the proportion of immigrants in its population that was characterised by a new predominance of non-European immigration. Despite this, average segregation levels remained moderate. While the number of immigrant enclaves increased, particularly during the 2000s, the average concentration for most groups decreased because of a reduction of heavily concentrated census tracts and census tracts with few immigrants. Contradicting frequent assertions, neither mono-ethnic census tract nor ghettoes exist in France. By contrast, many immigrants live in census tracts characterised by a low proportion of immigrants from their own group and from all origins. A long residential period in France is correlated with lower concentrations and proportion of immigrants in the census tract for most groups, though these effects are sometimes modest. 1 The authors accessed the Census data via the Centre d'accès sécurisé distant (CASD), dedicated to the use of authorized researchers, following the approval of the Comité français du secret statistique. This research was partially supported by a French State grant ANR-10-EQPX-17 (Centre d'accès sécurisé aux données-CASD). We thank three anonymous referees for insightful comments. Jean-Louis Pan Ké Shon would also like to thank Loïc Wacquant for his comments during discussions in the early stage of this project. This paper does not necessarily reflect the views of the Banque de France.