ASSIMILATION OF FOREIGNERS IN FRANCE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3143, 13 November 1922, Page 2

ASSIMILATION OF FOREIGNERS IN FRANCE.

The Mercure de Franco for August contains an article by Ambroise Got. largely based on official statistics of naturalisation, etc., published in Juno last. The problem is mado a doubly vital one by tho alarming decline of tho French birthrate. Excluding AlsaceLorraine altogether, the total French population, fell off 2,200,000, between L9ll and 1921. Tho number of foreign residents meantime increased about 300,000; but this, added to the rcnnnexaition of the Rhino provinrtes with over a, million and a, half inhabihas actually left 200,000 souls less within tho French borders than ten years ago. The real impoverishment of Franco is made far greater than tho mere figures reveal, by the terrible loss in tho world war of a million and a half vigorous youths—just about the total number of the present alien sojourners in France. Tho writer recalls. interestingly, that the original Latinised Celtic, stockin Gaul has completely absorbed three largo Teutonic infiltrations—Franks, Hurgundians, and Normans. Again, in more recent times, from Germanspeaking Lorraine and Alsace, or Savoy and Nice, to the Basques and Bretons, Flemings and Corsicans, Franco has won citizens who surely are today as patriotic, and as valuable, as any of the oldest Celto-Latin central stock. At this point there is mentioned a, grimmer illustration of full success in kindly assimilation : many of the ablest leaders and generals of Germany in the world war bore names revealing their direct descent from that host of Huguenot exiles. heroic and loyal Frenchmen as well, whom France so unwisely cast out from-her bosom. There are three chief and well-de-fined incoming tides. Tn the south-east are found almost half a million Italians, in the south-west 300,000 Spaniards, and in the north over 400,000 Belgians. The great majority of them all are laborers, drawn to the French factories and farms by economic laws, and, especially, by the waning of the French population. As the writer wisely remarks, the Southrons are also Latins, close akin to their hosts by traditions, language, and creed; the Belgians are Celto-Germanic, but Latinised quite like the French themselves. The chidf purpose of the essayist is to urge that these three migrations be heartily welcomed, increased as much as possible, and used as hopeful material for future citizens, by naturalisation. to offset the alarming drop in the native French birth-rate. Among minor new sources, Poland and Czechoslovakia are especially mentioned as "least dangerous" : a phrase curiously illuminative oil present-day French psychology. There is an absolute lack of allusion to any emigration at all, except indeed the desirable colonisation of "New France," that is, the old Barbary States of North Africa. There is, at .least, some loss of French brides to the United States. Though the rigid war-time system of passports, scrutiny at the frontier, and inquisition as to length and purpose of stay, is of course abolished, and recent legislation has made permanent settlement in France, and even naturalisation, somewhat easier, yet the results' thus far will certainly seem, particularly to Americans, most meagre. The majority of vintners and harvesters from the South do not even stay n France over the winter. The gain of permanent residents is possibly 30,000 yearly. There were actually naturalised 2000"in 1919, 5000 in 1920, and 10,000 last year. This rapid gain shows tho success of the new legislation (though easier conditions are still' earnestly called for), but these numbers appear to include not only men and women, but all the children whose, nationality is fixed by their parents' decision. The largest hope expressed is for an eventual yearly immigration of 100,009, from which it "is believed 50,000 Frenchmen by adoption might be won. A curious digression discusses the possible phonetic modification, translation into French, or complete change, of the family names of the newcomers, so that their" posterity shall _ have to bear no stigma of foreign origin. Perhaps the most interesting portion of thiw suggestive paper is concerned with two outlying portions of France. The writer, like his countrymen generally, betrays no antipathy whatever to men of other colors, and considers Algeria, the ideal example of success in dealing with, "the lesser breeds" : "We are engaged in the task of creating, in three great provinces of New France, a type of Frenchmen quite diverse from that of the metropolis, properly Algerian, Moroccan, or Tunisian Frenchmen,, a resultant from the mingling of several races, apparently hybrids, but swiftly welded together in a lasting cement: French cement." The French citizens in Algeria, native and naturalised, have increased 70 per cent, in twenty years, and number 830,000—four times the alien white residents. But this is credited "to the strict application of the naturalisation Taw of 1889, by the terms of which whoever i.s born on French soil, with' a father or mother also bom there, s legally French." In fact, the residents of Spanish and Italian descent largely outnumber the French. . In Tunisia., the writer speaks l of the "obstinate furious effort of the Italian colony, which has special legal privileges* and is able, thanks to its numerous schools, associations, etc, to defend itself effectively against absorption." He is, however, frankly in favor ei abolishing all such privileges, and evidently proposes to force French speech and education upon the 85,000 Italian as well as the other foreigners. There are but 55,000 Frenchmen in the colony. As to the still more delicate and perilous situation in Morocco, with its -15,000 French colonists, "it would be premature to express any judgment." As is well known, the relations of France with both her Latin neighbors are far from cordial, and not least on account of her policy of "absorption" in Africa. The Germans in Alsace-Lorraine atthe close of the war. including the retiring troops, are estimated at 310,000. of whom 30.000 "voluntarily repatriated themselves," and 80.000 have claimed the right of naturalisation., as having French husbands or wives, ami 30.000 on other legal grounds, in the last two years alone. Evidently the methods are as efficacious, if not quite so drastic, as those in force for stamping out the German language. The very recent return to compulsory "repatriation" is not touched upon. The general impression from his very readable article is that European France has verv little prospect of finding an adequate offset for her dwindling native population. The low social or economic average of the new citizens is indicated in the statement, that for 46 per cent, the regular court expenses of naturalisation were wholly remitted, and for 10 per cent, were materially reduced, less than one m fourteen paying his bill, No suggestion is made of any effort to improve the low native birth-rate, either by changing the law of inheritance, so often offered as its chief explanation, or otherwise.