More data from the results of the 2011 French census published by INSEE last week.
We now know which immigrants groups grew and declined the most in France in 2010 (the census in France now takes place every year in January, and the full results are published 3 and a half year later).
Note that an immigrant group can grow only due to new arrivals. Children of immigrants born in France are not counted as immigrants. An immigrant group can decline either due to the death of old immigrants in France or due to the departure of immigrants from France.
The results here refer to
Metropolitan France (the European part of France), and "from" refers to the country of birth of the immigrant.
Most growing and declining immigrant groups in 2010:
- from Morocco: +8,743 people in Jan 2011 compared to Jan 2010
- from Romania: +7,986
- from Algeria: +7,277
- from Tunisia: +4,395
- from Congo-Kinshasa: +4,163
- from Russia: +4,015
- from Portugal: +3,977
- from Haiti: +3,879
- from China: +3,225
- from Cameroon: +3,179
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- from Jordan: -40
- from Slovenia: -52
- from Sweden: -107
- from Austria: -128
- from Denmark: -165
- from Cambodia: -253
- from Lebanon: -330
- from Germany: -1,459
- from Spain: -3,363
- from Italy: -6,162
The immigrants from the Congo-Kinshasa have now officially become the 4th largest sub-Saharan African community in France (they passed the Malians in 2010). I say "officially", because in reality they are already the #1 sub-Saharan African community in France. This is because many people born in the Democratic Republic of Congo write simply "Congo" in the census forms and are thus wrongly counted as coming from the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville). The immigrants from Congo-Kinshasa + Congo-Brazzaville living in France numbered 119,908 in 2011, way ahead of the Senegalese immigrants (81,526), the Cameroonians (67,458), and the Ivorians (66,970). In this total of 119,908, there should be approximately 30,000 people who really come from the Congo-Brazzaville, so the immigrants from the Congo-Kinshasa are most likely already the #1 sub-Saharan African community in France, something which the French are yet to realize, because the Congo-Kinshasa was not colonized by France and is less "visible" in France.
In the future, I predict the Congolese will become the largest immigrant community of France, period.
Growth in 2010 in relative terms (only the immigrant groups with more than 10,000 people living in Metropolitan are included):
- from Romania: +12.0%
- from Haiti: +9.9%
- from Armenia: +9.7%
- from Russia: +8.2%
- from Bulgaria: +7.8%
- from Cape Verde: +7.1%
- from Congo-Kinshasa: +7.0%
- from Guinea-Conakry: +6.3%
- from Comoros: +5.6%
- from Angola: +5.3%
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- from The Netherlands: +0.3%
- from the UK: +0.2% (the big inflow of UK immigrants in France in the 2000s seems over)
- from Mauritius: +0.1%
- from Laos: -0.0%
- from South Korea: -0.1%
- from Cambodia: -0.5%
- from Lebanon: -0.9%
- from Germany: -1.2%
- from Spain: -1.4%
- from Italy: -2.0%
In the overseas departments, if I select only the 10 largest immigrant groups living there, their growth in 2010 was the following:
- from the Dominican Republic: +18.5%
- from China: +5.9%
- from Haiti: +3.6%
- from the Comoros: +3.5% (Mayotte is not included in those figures, so the +3.5% only reflect the growth of the Comorran immigrant community in Réunion)
- from Dominica: +3.3%
- from Brazil: +3.1% (the Brazilian immigrants in the overseas departments, i.e. almost only French Guiana, grew by +574 people, or +3.1%, in 2010, whereas the Brazilian immigrants in Metropolitan France grew by +1,345 people, or +4.6%, in 2010)
- from Suriname: +2.3%
- from Guyana: +2.1%
- from Mauritius: +1.2%
- from Madagascar: -0.7%