France - Executive summary
BACKGROUND RESEARCH REPORT
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Executive summary
French law forbids distinguishing, or counting, citizens or residents according to their faith. However, estimates place the French Muslim population at between 3.5 and 5 million, representing 6.0-8.5 per cent of the total population (58.5 million). This total includes at least 2 million Muslims with French citizenship. The majority of Muslims in France have origins in North Africa (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia — the Maghreb). There are also large populations with origins in Turkey, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Muslim migration to France began before World War I, but significantly expanded after World War II, when French companies, in need of immigrants to fill gaps in the labour market, recruited from the Maghreb, the countries of the Sahel area (Senegal, Mali and Mauritania), and later from Turkey. This first wave of economic immigration was suspended in 1974. In the 1970s, immigration occurred mainly through family reunification; although tight restrictions had been put in place, many women and children joined the male immigrants and settled in France. The next wave of immigration was the arrival of political refugees from Turkey, after the military coup d’état in 1980. In the second half of the 1980s, Kurds from Turkey also arrived in France as asylum-seekers.
French Muslim immigrants were mostly employed in industries such as car production, the building trade and the chemical and metallurgical industries. They settled in areas where industrial activities and cheap housing were concentrated, a pattern that has been retained to this day. The most significant Muslim populations are in the following régions (counties): Île-de-France (where Muslims comprise up to 35 per cent of the population), Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur, PACA (20 per cent), Rhône-Alpes (15 per cent), Nord-Pas-de-Calais (10 per cent) and Alsace.
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