Jennifer Jenkins

West Africans in Paris: an Assessment of French Immigration Policies in the 1960's and 1970's Jennifer Jenkins

My book offers the first comprehensive examination of the French Government's attempts to integrate West Africans who immigrated to Paris after 1945. It demonstrates that the French Government's employment, education, housing, and health policies for the integration of West Africans who immigrated to Paris during the 1960's and the 1970's were mostly unsuccessful, despite some limited achievements. The Government was responsible for this impeded success for two main reasons: insufficient centralization; and a faulty registration system. The housing fires in Paris of September 2005 and the riots of October and November of 2005 highlighted the poor housing and poor employment opportunities of West Africans and in turn demonstrated that the problems from the 1960's and 1970's still existed despite the Government's efforts: decrepit, unsanitary housing; and high unemployment. It is important and necessary to study the French Government's political, economic, and social policies for West African immigrants in France during this period because these policies set a precedent for the treatment of future immigrants in France.