The region Ile-de-France, represents close to a fifth (18.1%) of the French population. Of the region’s 12 million inhabitants, around 2.2 million live in Paris. The Ile-de-France region accounts for almost 40% of all foreigners present in mainland France. Within Paris, around 20% of the population is foreign born, among which more than a third have acquired French nationality. Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees have arrived in successive waves and tend to cluster in distinct neighbourhoods of the city, often by nationality. The largest migrant groups are from Algeria, China, Portugal, Morocco and Italy. Almost 80% of total foreign-born population in Ile-de-France settled more than ten years ago.
Since 2015, and like many urban centres in Europe, Paris experienced an increase in humanitarian migrants. Out of the almost 64 000 asylum requests made in 2016 in France, around 24 000 were made in the region of Ile-de-France, over 40% of which were in Paris (approximately 10 000). The increase of arrivals has put pressure on public services and called for both emergency and long-term integration responses.
Recent trends have to be understood within the City of Paris (hereafter the City) approach to integration issues. France traditionally has sought to integrate migrants through uniform policies, meaning through access for all groups to universal services. Since 2015, there has been an increased awareness at all levels of government that migrants and refugees need additional and targeted support above and beyond equitable access to universal services for social and job market integration. The creation in 2018 of the Interministerial Integration Committee and the Inter-ministerial Delegate for Refugee Reception and Integration attests to this shift in integration policy. Integration has returned among the priorities of the French administration, with an awareness that the territorial dimension is crucial. The challenge is to combine the means and measures that will be at the disposal of regional préfets (representatives of the national government in the region) with the actions that cities already deploy.
At the local level, while the principle of universal access to services is maintained, the City has put in place a variety of actions to facilitate and accompany migrants in accessing those services. In addition, the City deploys actions targeting broader objectives of social cohesion, such as trying to foster the inclusion of migrant communities and fighting isolation, including by increasing the likelihood for migrants to interact with the native born.
Whereas the national government holds key competences in migration and asylum policy, the City is responsible for key sectors (i.e. social and welfare services, etc.) relevant to integration. It does so both as a “départment” (second tier of subnational government) and a municipality. Within this multi-level governance framework, the City acts in support of migrants, closely collaborating with numerous Paris-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs) active throughout different stages of a migrant’s reception and integration journey.
The municipality of Paris uses different policy tools to attract and integrate migrants who choose the city as their destination. This report investigates in particular three of them. First, the report describes some of the generic services that each municipal department is financing which have an impact on migrant access to public services. It also considers the co-ordination system that ensures their coherence. The City monitors these services through an action plan for integration and allocates a specific budget that has been multiplied by four since 2005. Concretely, this action plan does not finance a parallel migrant-specific system. Rather, it ensures a plurality of entry points for migrants in the city to access their social and legal rights over time and navigate bureaucratic procedures.
Second, the report considers the City Policy (Politique de la ville), a national-urban policy which aims at reducing intra-urban inequalities by strengthening the quality of public services offered in the most deprived neighbourhoods. The City of Paris comanages and co-finances this policy with the national government. This policy significantly affects the integration of migrants as they are over-represented in such areas.
Third, the report explores the city’s new action plan “Mobilisation of the Paris Community for Refugee Reception”. Paris has responded to the 2015 increase of humanitarian migrant arrivals with this plan to improve reception and integration of asylum seekers and refugees. It falls under the responsibility of the Deputy Mayor in charge of “Solidarity, the Fight Against Exclusion, Child Protection and Refugee Reception”.