It's a never ending subject – just how many Riviera expats are we and what are our nationalities? In July Nice-Matin again looked at the question of immigration in the PACA region basing their piece on INSEE and Interior Ministry findings.  

The first distinction to make is the difference between foreigners and immigrants: INSEE considers a foreigner as someone who does not have French nationality while an immigrant is someone born outside of France but who may have acquired French nationality by right of birth or by naturalisation. In PACA 9.5% of the population is immigrant while 6.3% are foreigners. In other words a third of immigrants in the region hold French nationality, in many cases as a second passport.

42% of all immigrants in PACA are maghrebins (North-African arabs) while 38% are from the European Union. Amongst the non-EU immigrants Algerians are the largest group followed by Moroccans and Tunisians. Within the EU figure the Italians are by far the biggest group comprising 17% of all immigrants to the region and well over 40% of EU citizens other than French. The second biggest group is Spanish followed by Portuguese. According to the report, EU nationals other than Italian, Spanish and Portuguese total under 40,000 in PACA – a figure which includes the British, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Dutch and most Scandivanians and therefore seems very much an underestimate. This can probably be explained by grey areas such as yacht crews who live on board, by full-time residents who pretend to only live here secondarily, those hiding from various tax-men, and by people here on temporary mission for multinational companies.

According to INSEE, North Americans, Australians, New Zealanders and other "down-underers" add up to fewer than 10,000. Southeast Asians number about 10,000 largely from formerly French Indochina. Sub-Saharan Africans (this would include the relatively small South African community) number around 25,000.

The Var has a lower percentage of immigrants than either Bouches du Rhône or Alpes Maritimes where the figure tops at around 12%.

Perhaps the most surprising revelation is that the immigrant population is falling rather than rising. In 1975, 12.3% of PACA residents were immigrants compared to 9.5% today. This diminution is largely explained by the dying off of many of the older North Africans who settled here in the late 60s and early 70s.

From Reporter 105 - Oct/Nov 2004

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