In the previous chapter I stated that in this book the phenomenon of immigration provides the material for an extended case study through which to explore the working of institutional complexes and ideological systems that characterize French society. Nevertheless, the French-immigrant relationship is at the core of the study and immigrants themselves do figure prominently in the narrative. Some information about their situation in France and in Lyon is therefore essential.

It is not proposed to discuss here the general background to immigration: the factors – social, political, and above all economic – that have led to the fluctuating demand for labor in the core countries of Western Europe and in the United States, the principal receiving societies in the modern system of international migration, and the relationship that existed and still exists between such countries and those that have historically exported labor – the sending societies either on the periphery of the European core (southern Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Ireland) or in the former colonies of Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. No understanding of modern migration can be complete without an appreciation of the significance of the broad intersocietal context within which it occurs.