The weight of France's colonial past on immigration policy
Résumé
Decolonization was a critical step in restructuring immigration policies in France because, at the beginning of the 1960s, French colonial subjects suddenly became foreigners. At the same time, former bureaucrats from the colonial administration found new employment in the public sector of metropolitan France. This chapter contributes to the academic debate about the continuity between colonial past and immigration present, by studying civil servants in charge of deciding who can enter France, to visit and work, and who can gain access to French citizenship. It is aimed at analysing the discretionary power of the functionaries and to exposing the norms behind their power. To understand what was at stake during this transition, the chapter starts by distinguishing between colonial domination and immigration policy. Then, it analyses the developments in the early 1960s and how certain bureaucrats were able to transfer their skills and practices from one realm to another. Finally, by analysing individual immigration files, it shows how this transition impacted foreigners themselves.
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