There has been a sharp increase in the volume of migration to Europe since the 1990s, which has reached its highest level since the Second World War. In the 1990s, ‘the old continent’ became the number one destination for migrants, ahead of the US, owing to the convergence of several trends (Simon, 1995; Fargues, 2003). Political and economic change in the European Union (EU) member states, spurred on by European integration, has been especially dramatic in Southern European countries – Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy – turning them from suppliers of migrants into countries of immigration. The acceleration of globalisation and the worldwide diffusion of new information and communication technologies (ICT) are increasing and facilitating transnational networks and international mobility. Population ageing, which is more advanced in Europe than in the rest of the world, except Japan, is encouraging immigration to Europe, despite restrictive immigration policies.

These geographical changes in migration flows are occurring simultaneously with changes to the forms of migration and migrants’ characteristics, motivations and migration behaviour. The so-called ‘new mobilities paradigm’ (Urry, 2000 has led to an increased amount and greater diversity of global migration.

Among European and Mediterranean countries, France has held a unique position, as a land of immigration, and represents a field of experience and knowledge about ageing and intergenerational relationships among migrants, within and across borders. The history of immigration in France merges with the history of the constitution of the French population, the ‘French melting pot’ (le creuset français), to quote Gerard Noiriel (1988), who likens France to a ‘Europe's America’, in the sense that ‘if you go back far enough in time, the people living in France today are all children of immigrants’ (Noiriel, 1992, p 43). Those migration waves occurred over a long period of time. Contemporary history focuses on the last decisive period, which began in the 19th century, with mass migration stemming from the industrial revolution (Noiriel, 1992), and whose most massive wave took place in the 1960s, up until the crisis of 1973, which then halted labour migration. Family migration took over and has expanded considerably since.