Immigration and linguistic integration: the case of France during the XXth Century

Francois Héran, Institut national d'études démographiques (INED)

The use and transmission of languages within immigrant families in France are addressed by the Family History Survey associated to the French 1999 Census. The size of the sample (380 000) makes possible for the first time to describe the transmission of languages from one generation to the other, during the XXth Century, with a distinction between habitual and occasional language, maternal and paternal transmission. We shall try to identify the factors that facilitate the passing on of parental languages within each minority, combined with the acquisition of French. We conduct the analysis controlling for the variables of social origins and human capital, as well as duration of stay. We confront the declarations of the children and the declarations of the parents, which don’t coincide. Last, we intent to see to what extent discriminatory attitudes perturb the correlation between the command of the French language and the access to the job market.