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Two-in-One Diasporas? Comparing and Contrasting Migration Management in France and Canada

Deux diasporas francophones ? Stratégies françaises et canadiennes de management migratoire
Eve Bantman

Résumés

Comment deux États peuvent-ils revendiquer la même diaspora ? C'est l'objet de cette analyse comparative de deux types de politiques publiques – la Stratégie Francophone du Canada et la promotion de la mobilité internationale en France. Le Canada, fort d'un siècle d'expertise, déploie une stratégie de recrutement migratoire millimétrée qui repose notamment sur la capacité à réseauter et engager la diaspora francophone. Cette stratégie mise en œuvre par des agents publics et des professionnels du secteur privé positionne les migrants francophones en ambassadeurs chargés de promouvoir le Canada comme une destination de langue française. La stratégie de la France visant les Français de l'étranger est plus conventionnelle : elle repose sur des institutions en charge de protéger les droits et intérêts des migrants, préserver leur identité et les liens à la métropole, octroyer des aides, et permettre la représentation politique et le vote. Ces dispositifs sont décalés par rapport à la stratégie canadienne dont les objectifs principaux sont de stimuler le développement économique, et cultiver des réseaux pour mieux engager les migrants. Les données empiriques sur les modalités de promotion et recrutement migratoire des Francophones au Québec illustrent le niveau de sophistication de la stratégie canadienne qui repose aussi sur la capacité à transformer les imaginaires de la francophonie pour mieux recomposer les équilibres diasporiques. Ces conclusions pointent le caractère potentiellement disruptif des stratégies diasporiques contemporaines, et invitent à une investigation plus large de ses enjeux.

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Introduction

  • 1 Alan Gamlen, Human development. State, Emigrants, and the Rise of Diaspora Institutions, Oxford: O (...)

1What happens when two states claim the same diaspora? The issue was recently examined by Alan Gamlen for whom the lack of an international migration regime on diaspora engagement raises questions regarding good practices in public policy and foreign intervention.1 The present article describes how Canada engages members of the French diaspora as part of its immigration promotion and recruitment strategies. The term diaspora is used to refer to the global Francophone community, not limited to citizens of French-speaking countries, but encompassing nationals of former French and Belgian colonies, and taking into consideration all those claiming real or imaginary connections to France, including migrants and their descendants.

  • 2 Antoine Pécoud, “Freedom of Movement: Value or Strategy”, Passerelle, March 2019, no 19, Paris: Ri (...)
  • 3 Ninna Nyberg Sorensen, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, The migration industry and future directions for (...)

2Quebec’s strategy, informed by the migration management paradigm,2 relies on the migration industry3 and civil society for engaging, recruiting, selecting, bringing and retaining Francophone immigrants. The convergence of public and private sector efforts in Canada contrasts with France’s more dated approach, under statist diaspora institutions in charge of facilitating international mobility for the French. The lack of French diaspora institutions aimed at boosting migration to France has given Canada a free hand to steer the migration industry and extensively engage with Francophone migrant audiences.

  • 4 Marteen Vink, “Comparing Citizenship Regimes” in Ayelet Shachar et al (eds.), The Oxford Handbook (...)

3Since the mid-1990s, diaspora engagement has become a widely practiced development strategy. It is implemented through policies designed to allow governments to reach out to migrants in both origin and destination countries. Engagement means the diaspora institutions of destination countries (Canada) will run extraterritorial programs in origin countries (France). From the perspective of global governance and international studies, engagement is touted as a mutually beneficial economic strategy. But transnational studies view engagement as equally conducive to divergence and conflict.4 Indeed, engagement policies are designed for a competitive global arena where countries are vying for access to talent and capital. Moreover, engagement strategies rely on tools designed for commerce and industry to promote products and secure profits. Engagement is therefore best understood as a combination of political and commercial strategies for driving migration globally and boosting growth nationally.

4Migration promotion is a perfect example of this. It refers to all activities that disseminate information on a country (regions, cities, etc.) and the opportunities available to immigrants who relocate there (employment, housing, education, environment, safety, etc.). Promoting also means sharing information on how to relocate (legal requirements, types of visas, transportation, banks and insurance, rental market, etc.), typically by connecting migrant prospects to organizations (government and businesses) that are migration services providers. Recruitment operations are another illustration of the commercial turn of engagement. Recruitment covers procedures whereby immigration becomes real: signing a job contract, securing a visa, renting a house, enrolling at a school, finding a bank, etc. Recruitment operations tend to connect future immigrants to relocation service providers. Together, promotion and recruitment constitute the key steps in diaspora engagement: they take place in the origin country, and involve a combination of state and commercial players.

  • 5 Martin Geiger and Antoine Pécoud (eds.), Disciplining the Transnational Mobility of People, Basing (...)
  • 6 Anne-Claire Fourot, “Redessiner les espaces francophones au présent : la prise en compte de l’immi (...)
  • 7 Sophie Cranston et al, op.cit., 646.

5The notion that international mobility flows are now structured by public and private players is a relatively new public policy paradigm that looks at how central and local governments, NGOs, for-profit organizations and independent stakeholders manage migration.5 Recent research published in the past ten years has started to explore and theorize the role and impact of intermediaries and industry in contemporary migration management. Many intermediaries are businesses on a government contract to provide a specific commercial service. Others are grassroots organizations – particularly community-based associations – in charge of the social and cultural management of new immigrants. Canadian migration management relies on a wide range of stakeholders – governments, employers, industry, associations, and scholars.6 Specific examples of these forms of migration brokerage and support are provided in the third part of this article, with insights into the ‘meso level’ of migration management, the networking operations7 that have attracted less attention than macro level (related to the destination countries) and micro level (related to information providers) aspects of promotion and recruitment. Despite their crucial role in driving migrant flows, promotion and recruitment intermediaries remain largely understudied. This research fills a gap in the existing literature on public-private migration management, and more specifically, on migrant intermediaries of the meso level that are networking French-speaking communities in France and elsewhere.

6The empirical data highlights the strategic role played by French nationals and the French migration industry in Quebec’s promotion and recruitment activities for Francophones. This term will be used here to refer to French speakers, both native or learners, but also to communities of French speakers that are the target of institutional programs that help define these communities. Since 1988, Canadian migration management has set out to attract more French speakers to Quebec and other provinces. It is currently implementing a ‘Francophone Immigration Strategy’ with policies aimed at the global Francophone diaspora. The article discusses the political uses of Francophonie in Canada, and its impacts.

  • 8 IOM definition, cited by Yan Tan, Xuchun Liu, Andrew Rosser, Brenda Yeoh, Fei Guo, “Transnationali (...)
  • 9 Alan Gamlen, op. cit., 7-9.

7As for diaspora, it is defined by IOM as “[e]migrants and their descendants, who live outside the country of their birth or ancestry, either on a temporary or permanent basis, yet still maintain emotional and material ties to their countries of origin.8 But our study leans with Gamlen who views diasporas as imagined, maintained, transient, disputed communities.9 Rather than merely connecting set diasporas to set countries of origin, diaspora strategies are actively imagining and reconfiguring Francophone communities that are treated as sources of human, social, economic, and cultural capital.

8Canada’s migration strategies and French networking activities are having a deep impact on the global Francophonie. These policies have repositioned French-speaking emigrants as key intermediaries in Canadian promotion and recruitment. Studies on emigrants acting as facilitators used to center on the 19th century migration as well as economic/illegal immigration. Today, scholars are addressing the role of emigrants in driving skilled migration. Beyond the development of local networks and chains connecting origin to destination country, emigrant brokerage is disruptive to the point of testing the limits of contemporary diaspora engagement. What happens when a country launches sophisticated diaspora programs in other countries in order to source workers and steer them for its own economic benefit?

9The first part of this article is based on research documenting the role of Canada’s governments, industry, and migrants in steering and re-engineering imagined cultural communities, arguing that diaspora and migration management have a disruptive potential. The second and third parts compare and contrast emigration/immigration management in Canada and France. Canada’s Francophone Immigration Strategy has successfully integrated aspects of diaspora engagement into its global promotion and recruitment, and partly reconfigured Francophonie. Building on observation of French-speaking emigration, industry and migrant participation to Québec’s promotion and recruitment, the fourth part documents online engagement strategies inciting Francophones to move to Québec in 2021. The final part concludes on a critical review of Canada’s strategy for Francophone Immigration and France’s promotion of international mobility. While this research points to controversial aspects of Canadian migration management, the theoretical purpose is not to condemn, but rather to deepen our understanding of contemporary diaspora strategies. It has therefore been careful to assess, not to stigmatize, policies and practices. Similarly, the description of the weaknesses and contradictions in French emigration management are designed to suggest improvements and further thinking on international standards and new directions in diaspora engagement.

Canada’s Francophone recruitment and diaspora engagement

  • 10 Chedly Belkhodja, Thierry Deshayes, “Partir pour le Canada : observations de la 12e édition de Des (...)
  • 11 For a comprehensive history of Canadian immigration policy, see Ninette Kelley and Michael J. Treb (...)

10France is a key migrant pool for recruiters from Quebec where they have sourced an average 3,500 immigrants per year since 2000. Beyond Quebec, all Canadian provinces are recruiting French talent in France and elsewhere to meet the objectives of Francophone Recruitment in France. For historical reasons, CIC (Citizenship and Immigration Canada – now Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada, IRCC) initiated a policy of recruiting skilled workers in the global population of French speakers, a policy of Francophone recruitment that was expanded in the past two decades.10 More generally, Canada is a global recruiter of skilled immigrants with a well-established tradition of promoting Canada with foreign nationals, and of recruiting and facilitating immigration.11 Canada is best described as a pioneer in migration management with a long-standing interest in the French diaspora. As one of several British colonies, Canada first professionalized its foreign recruitment policies even before its relative independence as a confederation. Before 1867, early policies were necessary to boost population levels, attract foreign settlers, particularly agriculturalists and home servants: Canada needed to occupy its vast territory to fend off US expansion. After 1867, global competition for settlers forced Canada to actively promote and recruit in an effort to spark migrant interest and attract settlers, farmers, and workers. By the turn of the century, its autonomous government elaborated on this early experience and further professionalized promotion and recruitment. To placate racist outbreaks, selectivity – a process that aims at recruiting the most suitable migrants – became a central component of immigration policy.

  • 12 Paul-André Linteau, Yves Frenette, Françoise Lejeune, “L’histoire de l’immigration française au Ca (...)

11As early as 1872, Canada stationed its first agents in Paris on a mission to distribute information there and elsewhere on the continent. Because these early migration agents secured appointments in return for political favors, and because they tended to disseminate false information on Canada, Canadian authorities soon set out to improve promotion, and began to professionalize recruitment at the turn of the 19th century. Even then, recruitment was not limited to France. Yet, for decades, immigration agents and policymakers struggled with French Canadians who left en masse for the United States. In order to maintain population, migration agents were dispatched to the United States and instructed to facilitate repatriation (reverse migration back to Canada). At the turn of the century, French nationals were also recruited to attract settlers to Canada, including the West, and although the number of French settlers, grew, they remained smaller compared to other national groups.12

12By World War One, Canadian immigration policy had taken a transatlantic turn, and relied on maritime and rail companies, as well as philanthropic organizations for filtering candidates and sending suitable migrants. Agents were given better training, and cooperated with French organizations. However, while the overall contingent of immigrants increased allowing Canada to select those most apt to remain and prosper, many French settlers decided to return to France at the outbreak of WW1. Faced with competition for settlers and workers, as well as opposition to mass migration, Canadian processes of promotion and recruitment were reformed to meet the needs of industrialists and employers, and to ensure immigration contributed to economic prosperity.

  • 13 Chedly Belkhodja and Thierry Deshayes, op. cit., 2.

13As the first wave of mass Transatlantic migration (1870-1914) ended, Canadian migration know-how had expanded considerably. When the second wave of mass migration started in the 1960s, the country set out to develop one of the most sophisticated selection systems: a point-based system aimed at assessing the suitability of each candidate based on specific skills and identifies the best profiles. In 1966, the Department of Manpower and Immigration adjusted Canadian immigration policy to address labor market needs; by 1967, it had devised a system that allocated points to temporary/permanent immigrants who matched expectations. Although this point-based system survived, Canadian immigration underwent a major overhaul in the early 2000s, thereafter tightening conditions for access. Importantly, as opportunities narrowed for numerous migrant groups, French nationals have enjoyed very favorable conditions. French migrants have since been encouraged to relocate to Canada, through joint federal and provincial initiatives, and largely benefited from programs seeking to revive French Canadian communities and bring well-trained, educated workers.13

14This ‘Francophone advantage’ is part of a clearly laid-out strategy of French language promotion that is implemented by IRCC, the federal department in charge of immigration, refugees and citizenship.14 Starting in 2003, diaspora engagement became yet another tool for promoting and recruiting Francophones when the Canadian embassy in Paris started to hold promotion and recruitment events. These events – whose number and scope have increased over the years – bring together recruiters (with job offers), migration industry companies, French Canadians community groups, economic development organizations, and agents working for provincial or territorial governments. Public officials and private agents join forces in harnessing French speakers – not merely French citizens. The aim is to deliver information on the diversity of French-speaking communities, the numerous migration opportunities in Canada, visas and the job market, etc. The list of themes covers all aspects of the migration process.

15These events are an integral part of IRCC’s strategy for boosting the proportion of French speakers to 4.4% of the immigrant total outside Quebec. In 2015, Citizenship and Immigration Canada introduced a new Comprehensive Ranking System under which fluent French speakers are now allocated extra points, for the purpose of facilitating their recruitment. To meet this ambitious target, the Express Entry System, responsible for filtering the visa applications of skilled workers, was adapted to grant additional points to French speakers. Additional sets of measures – including government support for French communities – aim at maximizing retention. Indeed, migration management has intensified competition, forcing federal and provincial governments to pursue migrant engagement in Canada. Migration policies now cover all the stages of the migration process, from promotion to citizenship acquisition, in an effort to ensure the best French-speaking contributors will settle permanently in Canada.

16Diaspora engagement has become increasingly sophisticated, with networks of ‘partners and stakeholders in Francophone immigration’ deployed at different stages of this promotion and recruitment process. The process involves federal, provincial and territorial players; its implementation requires the participation of Francophone diaspora members:

  • 15 IRCC, Francophone Immigration Strategy. Meeting our Objectives, 5-6, 2019.

According to many stakeholders, the “by and for Francophones” principle should apply from the design of policies and programs through to their implementation. This ranges from promotional activities and tools that direct potential candidates to Francophone communities, to French-language settlement services offered primarily by Francophone organizations… IRCC is committed to ensuring meaningful and timely participation of Francophone communities in the development of policies and programs, including the delivery of services.15

  • 16 Diane Van Den Broek et al, op. cit., 524.

17Like a century earlier, Canada’s migration management has embedded components of diaspora engagement into its immigration strategy, gouging that French speakers are best recruited and retained by their own community members. ‘By and for Francophones’ translates into tangible promotion and recruitment activities that will be described at length. While these activities are put in place to meet the targets set by IRCC, they are implemented by subcontracting several functions to the migration industry. As will be seen, this has resulted in grassroots groups and businesses acting as migration facilitators. This convergence of migration management with Francophone promotion materializes into the visible presence of Francophone brokers working to promote and recruit French-speaking migrants for Canada. These little-known intermediaries are defined by scholars as agents that intervene at various critical junctures to connect the migrant to the destination country labour market.16 The activities as well as the specific critical junctures managed by Francophone migrants will be described and theorized.

French promotion of emigration

18One of the explanations why Canada was able to steer Francophone brokers to its own benefit is that France has not developed a matching set of policies. While IRCC works to recruit Francophones, France actively encourages ‘expatriation’ and ‘international mobility’ in the name of free movement and ‘Rayonnement International’. These policies all take aim at ‘The French Abroad’ (les Français de l’étranger), a term that covers French emigrants, as well as some members of the French diaspora, such as nationals who never lived in France but are entitled to citizenship.

  • 17 Caroline Gau-Cabée, “L’industrie de l’émigration lointaine en Europe au XIXe siècle. Encadrement d (...)

19The right to leave and return to France was established as a constitutional right in title 1 of the 1791 French Constitution. During most of the 19th century, the French government set out to control outbound migration to the Americas without infringing on free movement provisions. While promotion and recruitment activities were restricted in most other European countries, France only loosely regulated migration agencies between 1855 and 1860.17 In the second half of the 19th century, French government intervention was limited to minor checks on industry, producing intergovernmental reports on migrant flows and, towards the end of the period, channeling French migration to French settlement colonies. Contrary to the UK, Germany, Italy, and many central European countries, the dominant belief was that emigration was too limited, and that the government’s role was to encourage the French to take on the world.

  • 18 Gilles Harvard and Cécile Vidal, Histoire de l’Amérique française, Nouvelle édition, Flammarion, C (...)

20The government acted on its own difficulties with settlement colonialism. Yet, scholars have now shown that the extent and geographical distribution of French emigration was overlooked. Recent research has documented a long tradition of French emigration to the Americas, starting with the New France colony in Canada. Other French hubs in the Americas included the West Indies (Haiti and smaller islands), Louisiana and California, and destinations in Latin America, particularly in Mexico and Argentina. In the face of colonial defeats, policymakers remembered that French migrants were hard to steer. Limitations of state-led migration and settlement policies were eclipsed by discourses on French character. When France lost its Canadian stronghold to Britain with the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the New France colony was idealized into a fond memory, a symbol of the lasting bonds uniting French settlers to France, a French take on the special relationship.18 This resulted in a lasting understanding of emigration as a cultural, rather than a political issue.

  • 19 Joelle Garriaud-Maylan, “Un pays pionnier. La représentation politique des expatriés en France”, i (...)
  • 20 Alan Gamlen, op. cit.

21In the second half of the 19th century, as France embarked on a second wave of colonial conquest, this cultural understanding of French emigration led to notable policy innovation. Although comparatively limited, French communities abroad supported a pioneering policy turn toward cultural diplomacy and a system of French soft power through emigration theorized as ‘Rayonnement International’ (French prestige abroad). Colonialists cast the French abroad as embodiments of national values and vehicles for French influence. In the 1880s, the ideas were implemented through cultural diplomacy, paving the way for the first diaspora institutions. Rayonnement International joined Free Movement as a key paradigm in French emigration policy. When it cast emigrants as vehicles of national prestige, the State introduced innovative provisions for the representations of the French Abroad in and outside Parliament.19 In the following decades, France opened new consular services (the Alliance Française, founded in 1883), thereby inaugurating the first diaspora institutions.20 The International Chambers of Commerce came later, in 1919.

  • 21 Paul-André Linteau et al, op. cit., 14-16.

22By the late 19th century, when Canada was trying to attract French settlers to the Prairie, the French government used this consular representation in Montreal to gather information about Canadian agents and networks. These networks stretched back to France where nationals were employed to recruit migrants. Among them, Catholic leaders played a central role, and participated to ‘Friends of Canada’, a coalition of elite members and conservatives, scholars and travelers, colonists and businessmen actively encouraging relocation to Canada. At the turn of the century, just as secular policies were implemented in France, Canadian recruitment networks elicited increased suspicion in France and local police authorities were instructed to watch all migration events, particularly those organized by Catholic priests, and deter relation.21 With the outbreak of World War One, however, many French migrants decided to return to the homeland. As the wave of Transatlantic migration ended, efforts to stem the flow of departures were discontinued.

23But French diasporic institutions in charge of promoting French soft power and representation abroad, survived relatively unchanged. When mass migration returned, in the 1960s, the French government did not revise its core paradigms and continued to rely on the same instruments. As more governments globally developed sophisticated systems for managing migration, France policies lost their edge and effectiveness. Free movement rights have been incorporated into article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and later in article 3.2 of the European Union Treaty (its implementation within the contemporary migration regime will be discussed in depth in the fourth part of this paper). When numerous countries adopted diaspora strategies in the early 2000s, government advisers did not recommend a change in policy. Rather, they argued in favor of further promoting international mobility for the French (particularly the CESE report of 1999). This new effort to promote emigration does not seem to be not premised on a clearly articulated French government strategy for managing emigration, for partnering with industry or for engaging the diaspora. Rather, France has relied on multiple provisions for boosting emigration, or rather, encouraging international mobility.

24In keeping with the paradigms of free movement and rayonnement international, the promotion of emigration was first articulated in a 1999 report on the ‘the expatriation of the French abroad, players of rayonnement national by CESE (Conseil Economique, Social et Environnemental). Following a ten-year investigation, the CESE reasoned that the number of French nationals living abroad was unduly low at 1.7 million individuals, by contrast to Italy (6.5 million), Japan (10 million), or Germany (5 million). Repeating the claim that the French Abroad were driving economic development, CESE made several recommendations that ranged from improving access to information on expatriation opportunities for French youth through language classes, intercultural communication, Erasmus, international apprenticeship, all the way to partnering with Germany or Canada. Simultaneously, CESE called on the government to encourage small businesses to hire French expatriates in order to facilitate foreign trade.

25This resulted in all-out efforts to promote migration and the international recruitment of French skilled workers. Today, France ranks first among Erasmus nations with a record one million internationally-mobile individuals.22 Government-sponsored VIA & VIE programs finance international apprenticeships for skilled workers. Temporary visitor and work agreements for youth (PVT) were signed with many countries, including Canada, bringing 85,170 nationals to Canada (only 13,374 Canadians came to France).23

26Yet, the diaspora institutions managing the French overseas population have not been reformed: they are operated by the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE), which runs an office for the French Abroad. In practice, the Office, now Delegation for the French Abroad, does not so much monitor migration policy as offer services to citizens living in other countries. The delivery of services involves many other institutional players, including the Treasury, Social Security and Retirement agencies, the French job centers (Pôle Emploi). It also connects to the French migration industry that is in charge of sending the French abroad.

27There is no single body in charge of engaging with the diaspora. The MEAE funds French cultural diplomacy and consular offices, yet it is not in charge of steering the Francophone community. And while the global networks of French francophonie do extend globally, they are designed for French language and value promotion, not as vehicles for migration management or diaspora engagement (see the fourth part of this paper for a deeper analysis of French policy paradigms).

  • 24 Franck Temporal, Chantal Brutel, “La mesure des flux migratoires entre la France et l’étranger : (...)

28Gaps in emigration management are also apparent in the failure to assess the impact of promotion. The MEAE has relied on consular registrations, which are not compulsory, to gauge the number of nationals living abroad. At the same time, INSEE (the office for national statistics) registered a sharp rise in overseas French populations in a 2003 study, and confirmed the trend in 2015 when it estimated the number of French nationals abroad to range somewhere between 3.2 and 3.5 million in 2013.24 At a time when the French press was actively promoting emigration, the political and economic weaknesses of the strategy started to attract attention.

  • 25 French terms for emigration reflect political reluctance to adapt to standard concepts. Rather tha (...)
  • 26 Ministère de l’Europe et des affaires étrangères, Rapport du gouvernement sur la situation des Fra (...)

29In 2014, economic advisers and politicians started to voice their concern over emigration and the economy. In spring 2014, executives at the Chamber of Commerce published a report entitled ‘the Talent Drain, a Key Stake for Economic Competitiveness’ (fuite des talents, enjeu essentiel de la compétitivité).25 In fall 2014, they were auditioned by representatives at the lower legislative chamber (Assemblée Nationale) for a hotly-debated session on ‘Prime Movers Going on Exile’ (l’exil des forces vives) that brought together politicians, recruiters, civil servants, diplomats, representatives for the French Abroad, cultural diplomacy officers, as well as migration industry players. Transcripts and recommendations were published in a 658-page report praising youth mobility programs, criticizing the paucity of French statistics on migration, and concluding on the need for serious diaspora engagement toward rayonnement international. This 2014 debate did not trigger reforms; the policy of promotion was continued; the method for collecting statistics on emigration was left unchanged. The 2017 report on the French Abroad claimed 1,782,188 French nationals were living abroad in 201626 in complete disregard to the 3 million plus estimates published by INSEE.

Reconfiguring Francophonie through online Diaspora Engagement

30The discrepancy between France’s promotion and Canada’s management has facilitated the task of engaging the French diaspora and bringing Francophones to Québec. As we shall see now, support for international mobility in France helped implement Canada’s Francophone strategy. The French stance is fairly unique: most migration management strategies aim at developing and retaining local talent and capital. France is different in the sense that its migration industry facilitates emigration, not immigration.

31French facilitation largely explains the effectiveness of the activities that will be presented below. The French state is feeding the growth of French emigration and therefore facilitating Canada’s access to its population. With both agendas aligned to perfection, the French migration industry works to bring French nationals to Canada. With time, the French are increasingly engaged as networking agents networking the global population of Francophones for Canada’s benefit.

  • 27 <https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/reports-statistics/research/geographic-origins-french-speaking-immigrants-outside-quebec.html> accessed on 5 February 2023.
  • 28 <https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/171025/dq171025b-eng.htm?indid=14428-1&indgeo=0> accessed on 5 February 2023.
  • 29 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/171025/t002b-eng.htm accessed on 5 February 2023.
  • 30 Jerôme Lê and Pierre Leservot, Annonce du brexit et crise de 2008 : peu d’impact sur l’immigration (...)

32Starting in 2003, Canada’s Francophone immigration strategy to attract capital and talent has promoted migration opportunities for French speakers. The recruitment target is five percent of Francophones. To this end, Canadian promoters and recruiters are sourcing workers not just from France, but from the global French-speaking diaspora. Outside Quebec, only 21.5% of French speakers come from France: the majority is sourced in Romania, Haiti, Mauritius, Lebanon, the United States, India, and China.27 Since 2016, Africa has become the second largest source of foreign immigrants, the first being Asia with half of all immigrants to Canada.28 France accounts for two percent of overall recent immigration in 2016 at 24,155 (one of only 3 western countries with the US and the UK among the top ten sources for immigrants).29 Following the Covid outbreak, Canada raised the bar considerably and aims at selecting 400,000 immigrants every year. In order to meet these targets, Canada relies on a mix of on-site and online activities. The ministre-conseil for immigration and other agents posted at the Canadian embassy in Paris are in charge of promotion and recruitment operations in France, Belgium and parts of Africa where large communities of French speakers can be found. Officials also mention recruitment operations in third countries such as the UK, a top destination for French emigrants where the population of French origin has been rising steadily, even after Brexit.30

33This multicultural turn in immigration is recent: during the first wave of mass migration, Canada wrangled with diversity, discriminated against Chinese, African descent, and Jewish immigrants. But its current immigration policy follows an entirely different rationale, aimed at supporting Francophone communities, attracting global talent, and boosting economic competitiveness. These objectives inform the promotion and recruitment strategy implemented for the French diaspora.

  • 31 Mireille Paquet, “The federalization of Immigration and Integration in Canada ”, Canadian Journal (...)

34The shift toward global Francophone recruitment in Canada took place in the 1980s. Home to the leading Francophone center in the region, Québec was registering a decline in French population levels, a long-term political preoccupation for the Province. Prior to the 1980s, Québec tended to view immigration as a threat, responsible for crafting a multicultural nation to the detriment of bilingualism and French-Canadian political survival. But in the 1980s, Québec started to envisage immigration as a solution to the decline of the number of French speakers. It was the first province to negotiate with Ottawa and secure provisions for the regionalization of immigration.31 From then on, federal agents would join forces with their provincial counterparts to engage Francophones for recruitment purposes. CIC expanded its programs toward all French-speaking groups in partnership with local and provincial governments, French Canadian communities and organizations, scholars and facilitators working in the migration industry.

  • 32 Anne-Claire Fourot, op. cit, 35.
  • 33 Alan Gamlen, op. cit., 9.

35This coordinated effort to reach, inform, attract and retain larger numbers of French speakers was planned. Beginning in 1988, Canada’s Francophone recruitment was organized according to the new paradigm of French ‘revitalization’, embedded in the dominant utilitarian migrant recruitment paradigm.32 Francophone communities were mobilized and asked to engage with Francophones beyond borders. This new direction in Canadian immigration anticipated the global policy trend that led to the growth of diaspora institutions across the world, from 15 in 1980 to 41 in 2000, and 118 in 2015.33

  • 34 Yves Frenette, Étienne Rivard, Marc St-Hilaire, “Les mutations de la francophonie contemporaine”, (...)

36After Canadian immigration officers started to target the French global diaspora, the proportion of French speakers in Canada rose. Within Francophone communities, the shift and magnitude of global francophone recruitment raised a series of issues. By 2007, Francophone recruitment had introduced more cultural and ethnic diversity into Canadian Francophonie. New patterns of immigration were redefining the identity of pre-existing French communities, connecting Canadian population centers with distant French communities on the American continent, particularly the West Indies. Experts wondered about the future of France’s Francophone networks, their ability to mediate and compete with new vehicles such as the International Organization for Francophonie. Would the connection to French history and French in the Americas survive the change?34 The increase in global French immigration bound to Canada and the subsequent transformation of Francophonie were engineered as a solution to a local demographic problem. The aim was to maintain French population levels and revive French-speaking communities through immigration. In the process, diaspora engagement manufactured and re-imagined Francophone identity not just in Quebec, but in Canada, the Americas and the world. The impact was felt in France, now treated as an immigrant source.

37Canada has communicated with transparency on these issues, sharing information on its strategy, and cooperating with French migration and Francophonie experts. The reliance on French cooperation for meeting immigration targets makes Canada’s francophone immigration particularly effective. Like Canadian Francophones, French nationals were also instrumental to the success of Canada’s engagement strategy. French government agents and officials support these activities for the sake of promoting emigration. So do numerous French industry players, like the media, which offers an interesting example of how engagement is rolled out at multiple levels.

  • 35 Sophie Cranston et al, op. cit.
  • 36 Cécilia Brassier-Rodrigues, Françoise Cognard, “Le rôle de la presse française dans la promotio (...)

38Advertising and promotion constitute an important source of revenue for the media industry, particularly the online press, which can reach out to readers across borders. Online magazines, forums and blogs for ‘expats’ follow a specific business model: they get their revenues from migration industry firms paying advertising fees to be connected to potential migrants. To this end, they publish narratives of expatriate experience written in the first person, contents that subtly connect migration industry players to audiences of migrant prospects. The importance of these activities is such that scholars have argued that the entire migration industry functions as an informational industry.35 This applies to France where emigration is heavily discussed and promoted by journalists, migrant bloggers, and expert writers. The French media sector behaves and is identified as a leading destination broker.36

39My first example of this type of online promotion is a short piece published by francaisaletranger.fr, one of several newsletters for French readers interested in expatriation (the politically correct term for emigration). This newsletter was founded by a French emigrant and is staffed by marketers and journalists. On January 25, 2021 francaisaletranger.fr published ‘French Abroad: Why not Québec?’ (‘Français du monde : et pourquoi pas le Québec’)37, authored by Emmanuel Langlois, a French public radio journalist. The piece centered on the experience of a French national, born in Brest and now employed by Quebec’s economic development agency. In not-so-subtle ways, the piece serves as an invitation to contact him and prepare for relocation to Canada.

40‘Why not Québec?’ is sub-headed with information on Québec’s labor shortage and openness to France, a claim that is illustrated by the testimony of the French migrant, smiling at readers on a large picture of her inserted underneath the title. Québec is described as an attractive destination for French speakers who are in demand in several sectors listed in the article. The French expert addresses potential barriers to emigration, and insists that, despite the outbreak of Covid French migrants are invited to apply for a visa. The French national mentioned previously literally directs French prospects to QuebecInternational, the agency that employs her and specializes in international migrant recruitment.

41The article reads as the first-person testimony of a fellow expat offering advice on how expatriation is a process that must be planned ahead. But it is in fact a promotional piece by the head of international mobility services at Quebec International, an agency contracted by IRCC and the Province of Quebec to attract and retain migrants. This is obvious in the way Quebec International describes its international mobility services:

  • 38 <https://www.quebecinternational.ca/en/about-us/our-team/attraction-and-retention-of-international-workers-and-students> accessed on 5 February 2023.

Our attraction and retention of international workers and student professionals help local businesses grow by supporting them in their international recruitment activities. Thus, the sector deploys a service offering that helps companies reach a competitive position on the international stage and reach these talents.38

42The rest of the article describes services that she can provide – ranging from relocation to job coaching – services that are offered to individual migrants by Quebec International. She moves on to argue that Quebec is the best option for the French, and offers links to her email and company at the end of the article. French prospects must be struck by her sense of professionalism and generosity.

43This article is a typical sample of copywriting, of promotional material disguised as first-person narrative. Copywriting is a standard format for paid contents published on the online migrant media. Advertisers like Quebec International are charged by Francaisaletranger.fr for getting access to migrant readers. The leaflet for advertisers claims a global audience of 3.4 million French emigrants (INSEE estimates), including 340,000 managers and 34,000 small businesses. The readership is distributed globally: 22.79% in France; 7,949 in the United States; the rest scattered into clusters in Turkey, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Chile, Spain, Portugal, Italy, etc. Many are found in former French colonies: 6,213 in Haiti, and more in Canada, Morocco, Réunion, the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Algeria, Lebanon, and Belgium.39. This makes Francaisaletranger.fr a perfect vehicle for reaching out to the Francophone diaspora.

44In addition, promotional pieces such as ‘Why not Québec?’ illustrate the role of French emigrants employed in the migration industry for engaging more Francophones. The fact that they are migrants bestows credibility on what remains a place marketing strategy. Employing French emigrants and reaching out to the global Francophonie constitute two entwined forms of diaspora engagement. More particularly, French migrants are ideally positioned to convince French prospects: they embody opportunities available to the French in Québec. Articles typically showcase individual success stories, and in the process normalize the notion of being employed by a foreign government contractor to recruit French professionals. Again, the Francophone strategy feels very fluid because it is implemented through close cooperation between government, private sector professionals, and migrants.

45There are limits to transparency. For example, the article introduces Quebec International (the economic development agency for the province of Quebec) as a non-government organization. Similarly, the fact that Quebec International coordinates international recruitment and employs numerous recruiters and educational players is ignored. Quebec International would be more aptly described as a commercial partner to whom certain aspects of Canada’s immigration policy are subcontracted. Indeed, diaspora engagement is driven by government officials and then mediated by the migration industry in charge of extending promotion to larger audiences, more prospects, and in the end, very specific profiles.

  • 40 <https://www.quebecentete.com/fr/a-propos/> accessed on 5 February 2023.
  • 41 <https://blogue.quebecentete.com/> accessed on 5 February 2023.

46Francaisaletranger’s business model intersects with Quebec’s efforts to market the Province for Francophone audiences and attract French-speaking talent to the Province. Its strategy of engaging the diaspora is further deployed in Why not Quebec that features a link that directs readers to Quebecentete,40 an Internet portal managed by migration agents and intermediaries that connect prospects to recruiters in 13 sectors, from administration to health and computer services. Quebecentete’s main page leads viewers to a blog page entitled Expats at the Heart of Quebec. The Multicultural Community Online (expats au coeur de Québec. La communauté multiculturelle en ligne).41 These blog pages bring together French-speaking expat bloggers from France, Morocco, Cameroon, and Belgium (Francophone recruitment countries). Each profile, each entry traces a path to Quebec delivered as a series of first-person narratives of successful emigration that readers can identify to. The bloggers seem to have been selected to represent the ethnic/cultural diversity of Canadian Francophonie, as well as different migration case-scenarios.

47Quebecentete forefronts a Moroccan blogger of Jewish descent who has also lived in Algeria. Through her, Francophone recruitment speaks to Jewish nationals who are increasingly leaving France, following a wave of anti-Semitic attacks in Toulouse in 2012 or Paris in 2015. These events are never mentioned explicitly in the blog but her first entry as a guest blogger is dated 2016, right after the terror attacks on the Jewish-owned Bataclan and Kosher supermarket in Paris. This entry is remarkable in many ways: the migrant never mentions her denomination; she also insists on the difficulties she met rather than the advantages of relocating to Canada. In Québec, she experienced the language barrier, failed to access a position that matched her aspirations and experience, suffered from the cold and hunger at times. Yet, her tone is very enthusiastic about Canadians who helped her and the country’s openness to entrepreneurs.

48This harsh realism regarding the hardships of adjusting is an integral part of the Canadian strategy. Migration agents always insist on the difficulties inherent to emigration. Rather than painting a rosy picture, they zoom in on all technical aspects of selection, on the possibility of not being admitted or failing the language tests, on not meeting the requirements for securing a visa. Canadian diaspora engagement also reflects these standards.

  • 42 <https://blogue.quebecentete.com/non-classe/la-decision-de-partir-au-quebec/> accessed on 5 February 2023.
  • 43 <https://blogue.quebecentete.com/style-de-vie-a-quebec/cest-la-rentree/> accessed on 5 February 2023.

49One of Quebecentete’s bloggers from Cameroon targets readers who are tempted to leave fast. This is a tale of immigration on impulse, an exploration of the experience of immigrating now, without careful planning42. Also from Cameroon, an international student blogger admitted in 201743 wrote his first post comparing university experience at home and in Canada. In passing, he is also promoting Laval University, whose recruiters visited French education fairs in Paris and Lyon in 2018 and 2019. Indeed, international student mobility is an important source of revenue for the migration industry. Canadian universities recruiting students in France use promotional material that target visible minorities in France and the Francophone diaspora in Africa. Brochures in French with pictures showing visible minority students are particularly inviting: Canada is posing as a thriving, welcoming multicultural Francophone environment, a notion that resonates strongly with former French colonial subjects given France’s wrangling with multiculturalism and its postcolonial legacy. Canadian comparative advantage lies in both its positively welcoming attitude, and the way it tailored its discourse to target specific audiences treated as market segments.

  • 44 <https://blogue.quebecentete.com/non-classe/decouvrir-la-vie-au-quebec-avec-nous-cela-vous-tente-t-il/> accessed on 5 February 2023.
  • 45 <https://blogue.quebecentete.com/non-classe/pourquoi-tout-recommencer-quebec-40-ans/> accessed on 5 February 2023.
  • 46 <https://blogue.quebecentete.com/non-classe/ou-tu-vas-tu-quebec-quoi/> accessed on 5 February 2023.

50In spite of this commercial turn, Canadian care for transparency is not paid mere lip service: the student’s last post for 2020 is an open letter he wrote to the new Province Secretary for Immigration asking for the acknowledgement of academic experience and access to long-term visa for students. Quebecentete also publishes a Belgian blogger44 and his issues in identifying with Canada. The second entry for 201445 details the reasons why her family decided to move: a series of trying experiences at home, a history of mobility (her husband had worked in an English-speaking country), extensive travels, the absence of a language barrier, and her historical connection to Canada as a Francophone. Both husband and wife were recruited by Canadian companies in 2012. Francophone recruitment follows a highly-segmented rationale. A Franco-Ukranian family46 blogs on being recruited in Paris at an event organized by the embassy. The posts describe promotion and recruitment events. More interestingly, it expounds on how the family rediscovered the historical ties uniting Quebec and France, including the migration of les Filles du Roy (when King Louis the 14th, exasperated at the slow progress of French settlement in Canada, shipped hundreds of young French women to New France to marry there and bear children there). Once again, the blogs do not elude obstacles to immigration, here the Ukrainian wife resisting the move, before being conquered away (assisting partners struggling with migration is a common activity for migration industry experts). The husband recalls being interviewed by recruiters in Paris, and then enlisting one of his jobless friends. In the end, the husband was hired, his Ukrainian wife did secure a visa, and the friend might join them soon.

Conclusion: Managing migration and the French diaspora

51These blogs are evidence of the various networking activities used to engage the French diaspora. Francophone migration to Quebec is heavily mediated and powered by IT. By contrast, French policy makers seem to have a limited understanding of diaspora engagement. Emigration policy is mired in loosely theorized considerations on colonial history, Francophonie, and international mobility as elements of French prestige and soft power / Rayonnement International. This specious conceptualization ignores the development of a migration industry employing French nationals and working for economic competitors.

  • 47 <https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?B1=All&Code1=01&Code2=01&Data=Count&Geo1=PR&Geo2=PR&Lang=E&SearchPR=01&SearchText=Canada&SearchType=Begins&TABID=1> accessed on 5 February 2023.

52In 2016, Statcan (the Canadian Office for Statistics) counted 105,565 immigrants born in France among the recently arrived. The total figures for French origin stood at 4,670,59547. They testify to the scope and effectiveness of Canada’s Francophone immigration strategy. To compete in the war for talent and strike a better political balance, Canada has professionalized the recruitment of French students, graduates, professionals, and entrepreneurs. The Francophone Immigration Strategy has targeted French speakers in the Francophone diaspora and sourced immigrants from several countries, including many former French colonies. The strategy has steered, remodeled, and networked what can also be described as France’s diaspora.

  • 48 Ninna Nyberg Sorensen, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, op. cit.
  • 49 Diane Van den Broek et al., op. cit, 526.

53Diaspora engagement policies follow the same logic as migration management: both aim at maximizing economic gains. The rise of the migration industry “[h]as resulted in the outsourcing and privatization to NGOs and private contractors of everything… the governments thus actively sustain and fund large parts of the migration industry.”48 The scientific conversation on the migration industry and the interlocking web of public and private intermediaries and agents has only started. Migration industry scholars have called the “[p]aradigmatic shift towards private sector provision of migration… a game changer.”49 Our observations on Canada and France fully support these views: not only has Canada conceptualized its strategy following a purely economic logic (some call this the neoliberal turn in mobility, see Pelletier), but it has also professionalized all the stages of migration: engagement, promotion, recruitment, marketing, advertising, copywriting, and networking.

54Following Cranston et al. (2018), I have presented migrant intermediaries as place and experiential marketers, creating business in a performative knowledge economy. The migration economy is a marketplace for destinations. Their brand images are produced by disseminating information. Francophone intermediaries and subcontractors bring professional expertise and experience to a calculated economic strategy. This performative dimension of migration management is visible at all stages of the recruitment process, from blogging to publishing. With migrant intermediaries, migration management has breached into the realm of private, intimate experience. It has gained the ability to access audiences, and to manipulate them too.

55Strategies of networking, information and recruitment targeting Francophones are deployed globally toward the French-speaking diaspora: they cover several continents and many countries with related, and often belligerent histories. These histories are once again mobilized for political reasons: promotional and recruitment discourses encompass themes such as colonization, identity, French Canadian heritage, and Francophonie. They are laden with and imbued with complex, sometimes conflicting meanings. The strategy has considerable repercussions on patterns of population distribution and citizenship: engagement remodels the nation.

56These observations confirm Gamlen’s argument that diaspora engagement policies are not necessarily neutral examples of good practices. The Francophone immigration strategy (a form of government intervention mediated by industry) is disruptive. Canadian Francophonie was substantially transformed by French language promotion: contrary to the 19th century, mass immigration did not lead to race riots, selection that excluded certain peoples based on race. Quite the contrary, current trends in Canadian immigration lean toward greater diversity. Yet, migration management has profoundly altered the logic of Canadian policies, shifting it towards temporary, rather than permanent residence. It has created distinct visas, some with fast access to permanent residence and citizenship, others without these benefits.

  • 50 Caroline Gau-Cabée, op. cit.

57The implications for France are harder to delineate. The French strategy of promoting emigration does not seem to contribute to French economic development at all. In fact, there is a case for arguing that French policymakers have not grasped the new paradigm of migration management. They have failed to understand how migration management has changed the game. The situation bears resemblance with 19th century precedents when French legislators reluctantly conceded to regulate the migration industry at mid-century, just as low French standards threatened business in France.50 Whatever the reasons, the lack of an adequate response to Canada’s Francophone Immigration Strategy exposes weaknesses in the conceptualization of French sovereignty.

  • 51 Antoine Pécoud, op. cit., 159-161.
  • 52 Stéphane Dufoix, Carine Guerassimoff, Anne De Tinguy, op. cit., 35.

58Under contemporary migration regimes, freedom of movement is considered not as “a value representing the freedom and equality of all human beings, but rather as an economic strategy.” Its consequence, the formation of a supranational identity, supports workers’ mobility and serves economic purposes.51 This was the rationale underpinning the calls for effective French diaspora engagement strategy that were dismissed in 2014. The promotion of emigration (particularly the type of heavily mediated, managed skilled emigration I discussed today) cannot lead to Rayonnement International. An emigration policy that lionizes nationality will fail if it does not integrate effective repatriation or return policies,52 which is not the case today.

  • 53 François Chaubet, “L’action culturelle française dans le monde : 150 ans d’expériences, publié”, C (...)
  • 54 Sophie Meunier, “La politique étrangère de Nicolas Sarkozy. Rupture de fond ou de style ?” in Jacq (...)

59Statistics and the sheer magnitude of the Canadian Francophone Strategy beckon political attention. Canada is now an increasingly popular destination for French emigrants and has set very high targets for recruitment in the upcoming years. The French Senate is launching a new commission on the French Abroad in 2021. Will it deliver results? In 2014, CESE and Chamber of Commerce had urged legislators to engage with French workers and entrepreneurs abroad in an effort to steer French talent. Yet, growing awareness of the stakes inherent to the promotion of emigration did not result in policy or strategy change. While there have been attempts to reform, they missed their targets. French cultural diplomacy was modernized in the late 1970s, following a scathing report on its ineffectiveness.53 The institutions of cultural diplomacy were reorganized in the 2000s, under president Sarkozy, to serve French Rayonnement International. But reorganization failed to bolster French influence abroad.54 This study suggests that French emigration promotion cannot succeed because it is premised on the wrong paradigms. French decision-makers should base their policies on the migration management paradigm, and the existence of a powerful migration industry. And they would be well advised to put in place an effective strategy for engaging with the French diaspora that they have helped flourish.

60The same could be said of Francophonie, which is not the focus of this article, even if the way it was re-engineered by Canada should be a cause for concern in France. Just like emigration and rayonnement international, French policies on Francophonie have become increasingly multilateral, but still center on French language promotion in other countries, support for economic development in the developing world, and the defense of human rights. But policymakers do not seem to have clearly identified Canada as an economic competitor in the war for talent that is waged within the global Francophonie. In this respect, French policy misconceptions and weaknesses have had consequences on both emigration and immigration to France. Its traditional sources of foreign labor are now being directed to the Canadian market.

  • 55 Alan Gamlen, op. cit., 8.

61Furthermore, the reconfiguration of Francophonie provides evidence that there are now at least two French diasporas, validating Gamlen’s idea that a diaspora is “an imagined “community living away from a professed place of origin.”55 France’s lack of diaspora engagement policy may seem baffling given that the country pioneered diaspora institutions (cultural diplomacy, political representation) in the 19th century. The answer lies in French resistance or ignorance of the new migration regime of managed mobility mediated by industry, and the reliance on outdated paradigms that do not address contemporary challenges.

62Canadian French diaspora strategy originates in a different set of concerns, regarding settlement and population, competition for migrants and now talent, and economic growth. Based on its century of expertise, Canada has developed a high-profile strategy to network and steer the Francophone diaspora, a strategy that is carried out by government agents and professionals. This strategy has positioned Francophones as ambassadors marketing Canada as a French-speaking hub.

  • 56 Ibid., 3-4.

63Diaspora institutions may have varied stated purposes. France’s diaspora strategy is based on instruments that enable it to protect the rights and interests of its migrants, preserve identity and ties, provide benefits and subsidies, and create provisions for representation and vote facilitation. But contemporary diaspora strategies primarily aim at boosting economic development, cultivating power networks and engaging members as ambassadors for the homeland. They may be “negotiated bilateral agreements over the supply of migrant labour to other countries.”56 France would be well advised to take the economic turn in diaspora management into consideration.

64Diaspora engagement as a tool for migration management goes beyond boosting economic development. It has the ability to reconfigure community at both ends of the migration process. French Canadian community-building and development is a good example of how the state manufactures diasporas: through global promotion and recruitment strategies that tap into the loosely-defined imagined community of French speakers, Canada has remodeled the French diaspora. The carefully implemented strategy of Francophone immigration has shown that a single diaspora can be engaged by several countries. These findings point to the need for more studies exploring Gamlen’s theory that states maintain contemporary diasporas, and that this form of intervention should be more closely monitored in order to prevent the rise of conflicting extraterritorial claims.

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Notes

1 Alan Gamlen, Human development. State, Emigrants, and the Rise of Diaspora Institutions, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019, 247-248.

2 Antoine Pécoud, “Freedom of Movement: Value or Strategy”, Passerelle, March 2019, no 19, Paris: Ritimo, 2019, 158-168.

3 Ninna Nyberg Sorensen, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, The migration industry and future directions for migration policy, Danish Institute for International Studies, 2012; Diane Van Den Broek, William Harvey, Dimitria Groutsis, “Commercial Intermediaries and the Segmentation of Skilled Migrant Employment”, Work, employment and society, vol. 30, no 3, 2016, 523-534; Eve Bantman-Masum, “Migration Machine: Marketing Mexico in the Age of ICTs”, in O. Fraissé, M. O’Neill (eds.), Digital Labour and Prosumer Capitalism. Dynamics of Virtual Work, London : Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, 106-124; Anne-Claire Fourot, “Redessiner les espaces francophones au présent : la prise en compte de l’immigration francophone dans la recherche sur les francophonies minoritaires au Canada”, Politique et Sociétés, vol. 35, no 1, 2016, 25-48; Sophie Cranston, Joris Schapendonk, Ernst Spaan, “New Directions in Exploring the Migration Industries: Introduction to Special Issue”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 44, no 4, 2018, 543-557.

4 Marteen Vink, “Comparing Citizenship Regimes” in Ayelet Shachar et al (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, 234-235.

5 Martin Geiger and Antoine Pécoud (eds.), Disciplining the Transnational Mobility of People, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

6 Anne-Claire Fourot, “Redessiner les espaces francophones au présent : la prise en compte de l’immigration francophone dans la recherche sur les francophonies minoritaires au Canada”, Politique et Sociétés, vol. 35, no 1, 2016, 36-37.

7 Sophie Cranston et al, op.cit., 646.

8 IOM definition, cited by Yan Tan, Xuchun Liu, Andrew Rosser, Brenda Yeoh, Fei Guo, “Transnationalism, diaspora, and development: A purposive review of the literature”, Geography Compass, vol. 12, no 12, 2018. 

9 Alan Gamlen, op. cit., 7-9.

10 Chedly Belkhodja, Thierry Deshayes, “Partir pour le Canada : observations de la 12e édition de Destination Canada Forum Mobilité”, Francophonies d’Amérique, no 52, Fall 2021, 59-54.

11 For a comprehensive history of Canadian immigration policy, see Ninette Kelley and Michael J. Trebilcock The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy, 2nd edition, Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2010.

12 Paul-André Linteau, Yves Frenette, Françoise Lejeune, “L’histoire de l’immigration française au Canada au début du XXe siècle: bilan et perspectives”, Etudes canadiennes, 86-1, 2019, 12, 17-18.

13 Chedly Belkhodja and Thierry Deshayes, op. cit., 2.

14 <https://www.canada.ca/fr/immigration-refugies-citoyennete/organisation/publications-guides/strategie-immigration-francophone.html>, accessed on 9 February 2021.

15 IRCC, Francophone Immigration Strategy. Meeting our Objectives, 5-6, 2019.

16 Diane Van Den Broek et al, op. cit., 524.

17 Caroline Gau-Cabée, “L’industrie de l’émigration lointaine en Europe au XIXe siècle. Encadrement des agences d’émigration par la législation française”, in Lycette CONDÉ (ed.), Variations juridiques sur le thème du voyage, Toulouse : presses de l’Université Toulouse 1 Capitole, 2015, 97-114.

18 Gilles Harvard and Cécile Vidal, Histoire de l’Amérique française, Nouvelle édition, Flammarion, Champs Histoire, 2019, 680-681.

19 Joelle Garriaud-Maylan, “Un pays pionnier. La représentation politique des expatriés en France”, in Stéphane Dufoix et al., Loin des yeux, près du cœur. Paris : Presses de Sciences Po, 2010, 105-128.

20 Alan Gamlen, op. cit.

21 Paul-André Linteau et al, op. cit., 14-16.

22 <https://generation.erasmusplus.fr/erasmus/> for figures, accessed on 7 February 2021.

23 <https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/programme-vacances-travail-pvt/> for figures, accessed on 5 February 2021.

24 Franck Temporal, Chantal Brutel, “La mesure des flux migratoires entre la France et l’étranger : et si on parlait (aussi) d’émigration ?”, Revue européenne des migrations internationales, vol. 32, no 3-4, 2016.

25 French terms for emigration reflect political reluctance to adapt to standard concepts. Rather than speaking of the brain drain, the war for talent, or emigration, they tend to use cryptic terms that seem to have been crafted for the occasion - talent drain, prime movers on exile – alongside more familiar, yet equally opaque terms: The French abroad, expatriates, and international mobility.

26 Ministère de l’Europe et des affaires étrangères, Rapport du gouvernement sur la situation des Français établis hors de France, Paris, 2017, 5.

27 <https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/reports-statistics/research/geographic-origins-french-speaking-immigrants-outside-quebec.html> accessed on 5 February 2023.

28 <https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/171025/dq171025b-eng.htm?indid=14428-1&indgeo=0> accessed on 5 February 2023.

29 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/171025/t002b-eng.htm accessed on 5 February 2023.

30 Jerôme Lê and Pierre Leservot, Annonce du brexit et crise de 2008 : peu d’impact sur l’immigration depuis le Royaume Uni. Insee Statistiques, Insee, 2021.

31 Mireille Paquet, “The federalization of Immigration and Integration in Canada ”, Canadian Journal of Political Science, September 2014, vol. 47, no 3, 519-548.

32 Anne-Claire Fourot, op. cit, 35.

33 Alan Gamlen, op. cit., 9.

34 Yves Frenette, Étienne Rivard, Marc St-Hilaire, “Les mutations de la francophonie contemporaine”, in Yves Frenette, Étienne Rivard et Marc St-Hilaire (eds.), La Francophonie nordaméricaine, Québec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval, coll. “Atlas historique du Québec», 2013.

35 Sophie Cranston et al, op. cit.

36 Cécilia Brassier-Rodrigues, Françoise Cognard, “Le rôle de la presse française dans la promotion du régime fiscal de “résident non habituel” portugais”, Communiquer, 24, 2018.

37 https://www.francaisaletranger.fr/2021/01/25/francais-du-monde-et-pourquoi-pas-le-quebec/ accessed on 5 February 2023.

38 <https://www.quebecinternational.ca/en/about-us/our-team/attraction-and-retention-of-international-workers-and-students> accessed on 5 February 2023.

39 <https://www.francaisaletranger.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/MEDIA-KIT-JDFAE-SEPT-2019.pdf> accessed on 5 February 2023.

40 <https://www.quebecentete.com/fr/a-propos/> accessed on 5 February 2023.

41 <https://blogue.quebecentete.com/> accessed on 5 February 2023.

42 <https://blogue.quebecentete.com/non-classe/la-decision-de-partir-au-quebec/> accessed on 5 February 2023.

43 <https://blogue.quebecentete.com/style-de-vie-a-quebec/cest-la-rentree/> accessed on 5 February 2023.

44 <https://blogue.quebecentete.com/non-classe/decouvrir-la-vie-au-quebec-avec-nous-cela-vous-tente-t-il/> accessed on 5 February 2023.

45 <https://blogue.quebecentete.com/non-classe/pourquoi-tout-recommencer-quebec-40-ans/> accessed on 5 February 2023.

46 <https://blogue.quebecentete.com/non-classe/ou-tu-vas-tu-quebec-quoi/> accessed on 5 February 2023.

47 <https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?B1=All&Code1=01&Code2=01&Data=Count&Geo1=PR&Geo2=PR&Lang=E&SearchPR=01&SearchText=Canada&SearchType=Begins&TABID=1> accessed on 5 February 2023.

48 Ninna Nyberg Sorensen, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, op. cit.

49 Diane Van den Broek et al., op. cit, 526.

50 Caroline Gau-Cabée, op. cit.

51 Antoine Pécoud, op. cit., 159-161.

52 Stéphane Dufoix, Carine Guerassimoff, Anne De Tinguy, op. cit., 35.

53 François Chaubet, “L’action culturelle française dans le monde : 150 ans d’expériences, publié”, Carnet de recherches du Comité d'histoire du ministère de la Culture sur les politiques, les institutions et les pratiques culturelles, 26 février 2018.

54 Sophie Meunier, “La politique étrangère de Nicolas Sarkozy. Rupture de fond ou de style ?” in Jacques de Maillard, Daniel Kübler, Politiques publiques, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 3, 2010, 147.

55 Alan Gamlen, op. cit., 8.

56 Ibid., 3-4.

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Eve Bantman, « Two-in-One Diasporas? Comparing and Contrasting Migration Management in France and Canada »Revue LISA/LISA e-journal [En ligne], vol 22-n°57 | 2024, mis en ligne le 05 février 2024, consulté le 16 février 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/lisa/15766 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/lisa.15766

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Auteur

Eve Bantman

Eve Bantman (PhD) is a migration industry specialist whose recent research focuses on French emigration to Canada and Portugal. She has documented and theorized the ways private players structure patterns of international mobility. Her recent work on hypermobility and the digital practices of small entrepreneurs was published in Journal of Latin American Geography, Urban Studies and Anthropologie et Sociétés.

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