Authors

Juliette Ronsin¹;  ¹ Ecole normale supérieure, France

Discussion

Yugoslav immigration in France has been little studied, whereas most research concerns the main immigration countries for Yugoslavs such as Germany or Austria. Although the term gastarbaiter in France has no equivalent, it is also a labour immigration conceived as temporary and linked to the hiring of large industries, in the 1960s and 1970s. France was the first country to sign a bilateral agreement with Yugoslavia in 1965, which defined the recruitment and working conditions of a mainly male workers. 

From a gendered point of view, how did this agreement reconfigure Yugoslav immigration to France around the requirements of companies? What about women's workforce, when their professional career is often hidden behind the idea that they simply followed a husband abroad?

To answer these questions, my research is based on the study of the long-term trajectories of a generation of Yugoslav workers recruited in France during the 1960s and 1970s in the cities of Belfort-Montbéliard. This research is part of a micro-historical perspective: based on individual visa application files, police and association archives, and interviews with former workers; but also by analyzing "from above" the conditions that made this immigration possible: diplomatic exchanges between the French and Yugoslav ministries in the 1960s or links between ministries and companies to organise the arrival of this workforce.