The future of immigrants in France. Barriers and inequalities.

Summary This doctoral dissertation focuses on the process of immigrant integration by using census data, which combines both the richness of the observation period (1968-1999) and the richness of the immigrant groups (about ten), and compares the statistical analyses obtained from these data with an international literature on the modes of immigrant integration. The originality of this approach lies in the choice to treat the integration process in its multidimensionality, to explore the questions of causality between these dimensions and to emphasize the multiplicity of actors involved in it. All the results reveal a form of ethnic stratification of society that appears crucial whether we are dealing with geographical characteristics of spatial distribution, economic characteristics of participation in the labor market, characteristics of family life or access to nationality. It also responds to the dominant dialectic in the work on integration between structural and cultural dimensions of the latter. The results obtained strongly invalidate any thesis of a cultural gap between the "new migrants" and the native population. It is structural integration that seems to be problematic in France, especially for those immigrant groups that suffer most from discriminatory practices.