Immigration to France: an economic benefit

Workers talking about machines on site. © Sam Edwards / Getty Images

By: Jean-Pierre Boris Follow

Many people in Europe are showing signs of concern about what is perceived to be mass immigration. Flows of refugees from Syria due to the civil war taking place there, the boats that land on European coasts the African migrants who escaped shipwreck and death during the crossing of the Mediterranean, fueled the speeches populists based on fear of the other.

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One of the driving forces behind these speeches is the fear by the citizens of being deprived of their jobs by the newcomers, of seeing the state budget devoted to others than to those who have it. fed on their taxes. This is true in Germany, Austria, in Eastern European countries but also in France. Hence our choice, we question the place occupied by immigrants in the French working world and in its economy. Are immigrants a burden, a burden on the economy, competition for employees, these are the questions that we will discuss with the three guests here.

Stéphanie Do is a LREM deputy for Seine-et-Marne and she wrote with her colleague Pierre-Henri Dumont of the LR group a parliamentary information report on the evaluation of the costs and benefits of immigration in economic and social matters.

Ekrane Boubtane is an economist at the Center for Study and Research on International Development ( CERDI) at Clermont-Auvergne University and currently visiting professor at the Paris School of Economics. She works on migration issues and published in October 2018 a 64-page book entitled "The Economics of Immigration" at Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal.

Jean-Christophe Dumont is an economist at the OECD where he heads the international migration division within the Directorate for Employment, Labor and Social Affairs.

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