AFRO-CARIBBEAN MIGRANTS IN FRANCE - EMPLOYMENT, STATE POLICY AND THE MIGRATION PROCESS

Afro-Caribbean labour in France plays a distinctive role relative to the French population as a whole and the foreign immigrant population. Using a variety of qualitative and quantitative sources, this paper demonstrates that the role of the state in the process of migration from the French Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe from the early 1960s onwards was crucial. The key features are the French nationality of the migrants; the role of women in the labour force; the importance of public sector employment; and the varied level of skills acquired. Aggregate sources are used to describe detailed occupational distributions while records of individual migrants illustrate the process of migration and the influences on employment. At a time usually characterized by lack of direct involvement in migration by the French state, for Afro-Caribbeans state intervention in recruitment, training and settlement is shown to be very substantial.