As in the United States, cross-border migration and, more specifically, the risk of seeing the continent ‘invaded’ by immigrants are subjects of heated controversy in Europe. The attendant fears are widely exploited for ideological ends. There is nothing very new about this, as is borne out by two texts written almost 40 years ago: an article published in 1985 by Jacques Lesourne in the journal Le Débat and Alfred Sauvy’s 1987 book L’Europe submergée. Sud-Nord dans 30 ans [Europe Swamped. South-North in 30 Years’ Time]. Alain Parant has reread these for us and presents their main ideas here, showing, as he does so, that it was possible at the time to broach the subject in a highly pragmatic, though nevertheless direct, way, without evoking such strong reactions as we see today.
Observing the comparative population dynamics to the North, South and East of the Mediterranean — as well as the disparities between the global North and South in terms of development and culture — Jacques Lesourne was already in his day very clearly forecasting the ‘natural’ increase in northward migration. The differential in question has since been consolidated, if not indeed accentuated, as is shown here in Alain Parant’s ‘Future of Yesteryear’ feature, though Parant stops short of venturing new projections or prejudging the virtues and perils of such an inflow of foreign nationals. Nor does he enquire into their varyingly successful integration and that of their descendants into the host societies or, still less, broach the issue of the effectiveness of the policies aimed at regulating migratory movements.
This article is downloadable only in French. It is not available in English.
