Vietnamese people in France (; ) consist of people of full or partial Vietnamese ancestry who were born in or immigrated to France. Their population was about 400,000 as of 2022, making them one of the largest Asian communities in the country.
Unlike other overseas Vietnamese communities in the West, the Vietnamese population in France had already been well-established before the Fall of Saigon and the resulting diaspora. They make up over half of the Vietnamese population in Europe.Les français d'origine vietnamienne de retour à Saigon, La Croix, 2013 (in French)
History Before 1954
France was the first Western country in which Vietnamese migrants settled due to the colonization of Vietnam by France.Nguyen Quy Dao, La diaspora vietnamienne et sa coopération avec le Vietnam, 2013 (in French) The French assistance to Nguyễn Ánh in 1777 was one of earliest formal political relations between the two nations. Despite continued French Catholic missions, trade and military assistance to Vietnam throughout the rest of the 18th century and 19th century, Vietnam did not become a colony of France until the Cochinchina Campaign in the late 1850s and Vietnamese immigration consisted of a mere trickle of mostly diplomats.
During the colonial period, there was a significant representation of Vietnamese students in France, which largely consisted of members from the elite class and royal household, primarily from Cochinchina. Professional and blue-collar workers, mostly from Tonkin, also migrated from Vietnam during this period, with some settling permanently. One of the few monuments dating back to these earliest waves of Vietnamese arriving in France is the Temple du Souvenir Indochinois, originally erected in 1907 and subsequently relocated to the Jardin tropical de Paris in the Bois de Vincennes.Les temples du souvenir indochinoisSouvenirs coloniaux au bois de Vincennes - le Jardin tropical de Paris
The onset of World War I and World War II saw the French Empire recruit soldiers and locals of its colonies to volunteer with the war effort in Metropolitan France. Roughly 50,000 and 20,000 Vietnamese migrated to France during these periods respectively. The wave of migrants who came during World War I was the first major presence of Vietnamese people in France. While many migrants returned to Vietnam following the war, a significant number resettled in France to work as factory workers, railroad builders, artists, and service workers, primarily in Paris and the surrounding Île-de-France region, as well as in Lille.La Diaspora Vietnamienne en France un cas particulier (in French)
By 1939, there were an estimated 93,000 French residents of Vietnamese descent, largely consisting of workers and soldiers, as well as students. During the interwar period, a Vietnamese community began to be concentrated in Marseille in southern France. Vietnamese-owned rice farms were also established in southeastern France, and second and third-generation French Vietnamese started to run their own commercial firms or work in professional sectors.Giới thiệu sách Những người lính thợ của Liêm Khê Luguern theo RFI (in Vietnamese)20.000 travailleurs forcés d'Indochine oubliés par la France (in French)
1954 to 1975 Following the Geneva Accords, which granted Vietnam its independence from France, a number of Vietnamese loyal to the colonial government and Vietnamese married to French colonists emigrated to France. Hundreds of families who were evacuated out of Vietnam by the French government were largely settled in makeshift camps in the southwest of France. The most notable was in Sainte-Livrade-sur-Lot near Bordeaux, which hosted the Centre d'Accueil des Français d'Indochine (Reception Center for the French of Indochina). Most of these camps were structured in a similar layout as a traditional town in Vietnam, with a Buddhist temple, markets, schools and medical facilities.
During the 1950s to the 1970s, including the Vietnam War, a number of students from South Vietnam continued to arrive in France, as well as members of the middle class involved in commerce. Although many initially returned home, as the war situation worsened, a majority decided to resettle permanently in France and brought their families along. It was during this period that Vietnamese community institutions were established to better serve both new immigrants and expatriates, as well as established generations of Vietnamese in France. France officially recognized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) on 12 April 1973, following the Paris Peace Accords.
After 1975 The largest influx of Vietnamese people arrived in France as refugees after the Fall of Saigon and end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Early Vietnamese refugees who settled in France largely consisted of professionals who made up the middle class and elite in South Vietnam, along with those with high levels of education and those with family already present in the country. Larger waves of refugees later included South Vietnamese from different social standings, although their average level of education and affluence was still higher than their peers who settled in North America, Australia, and the rest of Europe.
France received the third highest number of refugees from Vietnam after the United States and Australia, numbering over 100,000 between 1975 and 1990. By the beginning of the 1990s, refugees had accounted for slightly over three-quarters of the Vietnamese population in France. Despite the community already being numerous before the refugee arrival, the Vietnamese American community soon surpassed its counterpart in France as the largest overseas Vietnamese population due to the much higher number of refugees resettling there.
Furthermore, Vietnamese refugees who arrived in France largely had the intent to request asylum in the country, unlike their counterparts who migrated to other Western countries, who made desperate attempts to be permitted resettlement anywhere possible, especially in the United States. The last of Vietnamese refugees arrived in the mid-1990s, when the remaining refugee camps closed.
Culture and demographics
Slightly more than half of the Vietnamese population in France live in Paris (especially in the 13th, 18th and 19th arrondissements) and the surrounding Île-de-France area, while a sizable number also reside in the major urban centers in the south-east of the country, primarily Marseille and Lyon, as well as in Toulouse. Earlier Vietnamese migrants also settled in the cities of Lille and Bordeaux.
Reflecting the community's long history in the country, first-generation immigrants form about over a third of the ethnic Vietnamese population in France, with about 128,000 individuals born in Vietnam as of 2012.Vietnamese Diaspora in the United States, p. 6, Rockefeller Foundation-Aspen Institute, June 2015. This is in contrast to other overseas Vietnamese communities outside Southeast Asia, where the immigrant generation forms half or more of the Vietnamese population.
Unlike their counterparts in North America or Australia, the Vietnamese have not formed distinct enclaves within the major cities of France (although many Vietnamese-based shops and cultural institutions can be found in the Quartier asiatique neighborhood of Paris' 13th arrondissement) and the degree of assimilation is higher than in the United States, Canada, or Australia, due to better cultural, historical, and linguistic knowledge of the host country.
The community is still strongly attached to its homeland while being well-integrated in the French society. Unlike Canada, the United States, or other European countries, the educational system in France does not emphasise a multicultural society. As a result, even though the generation of Vietnamese immigrants to France continues to hold onto traditional culture and values, later generations of French-born Vietnamese strongly identify with the French culture rather than the Vietnamese one. First or second generations born in France know very little about the country of their ancestors and often do not use Vietnamese, although cultural organizations and institutions are present to serve these groups of French Vietnamese.Blanc p. 1162 Fourth and later generations of French Vietnamese have largely blended into French society culturally, and have high rates of intermarriage with the ethnic French population.
Vietnamese is the eighth most spoken language of immigrant origin and most spoken Asian language in France.La dynamique des langues en France au fil du XXe siècle Insee, enquête Famille. (in French) However, a large number of French-born Vietnamese are unable to speak and/or understand it. Nevertheless, there has been an increase in Vietnamese-language schools serving both the community and local French in recent years.
A majority of Vietnamese in France observe Mahayana Buddhism, with influences from Taoism and Confucian thought also present. Buddhist temples have played important roles in the community, helping to serve immigrant needs as well as forming a base for cultural and youth organizations for the generations of French-born Vietnamese. Slightly over a quarter of Vietnamese in France profess to Roman Catholicism, often attending church services in French, rather than forming ethnic specific churches.Blanc p. 1165La communauté vietnamienne de France (in French)
Holidays observed by the Vietnamese in France include Tết, Vu Lan, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In addition, those who support the Hanoi government also commemorate International Women's Day, Vietnamese Reunification Day, and Vietnamese National Day.Blanc p. 1166
Socioeconomics The level of integration among immigrants and their place in French society have become prominent issues in France in the past decade. French media and politicians generally view the Vietnamese community as a model minority, in part because they are represented as having a high degree of integration within the French society as well as economic and academic success. A survey in 1988 among French citizens placed the Vietnamese in fourth place as the most integrated immigrant group in the country, behind the Italian, Spanish and Portuguese communities.La diaspora vietnamienne (in French)
Furthermore, Vietnamese in France on average have a high level of education attainment. French students of Vietnamese descent are also more successful than students of Vietnamese descent among other Overseas Vietnamese communities, having had a longer establishment and higher rates of success at the secondary and higher levels, while students in the latter group have only recently begun being represented as successful in the education system of their community's host nation.Marie-Eve Blanc. La difficulté d'échapper à sa « bonne réputation » : l'immigrant vietnamien dans la presse en France et au Canada. Varia, 2006. http://transtexts.revues.org/index191.html
Politics In the early 1980s, the rate of naturalization of Vietnamese in France was 5%, among the highest rates for immigrants in France (compared with about 0.25% for Algerians, the largest immigrant community). The 1999 census showed that about 75% of those who held Vietnamese nationality received French citizenship.
Despite having high rates of naturalization, the Vietnamese rarely follow French politics, having low participation rates in local and national elections.Bousquet p. 78 The generation of refugees from the Vietnam War usually become French citizens for economic rather than political reasons.Bousquet p. 79 While they do not follow French politics, they follow Vietnamese politics closely and in the past played pivotal roles in the Vietnamese political landscape in the early 20th century.