The paper is based on a series of interviews with the chief-medical officer who, from 1953 to 1963, used to examine men and women who intended to emigrate to France, and who were supposed to be screened by the ONI ("Office National de l'Immigration") delegation in Milan. This evidence shows how poorly Italian workers were appreciated by French officials, even in a period when Italians were supposed to be preferred to every other national group likely to emigrate to France. The paper emphasizes the nature and the deep roots of a certain number of negative stereotypes which greatly influenced French representations of "Italy" and "Italians". It also shows how complex and discouraging were the bureaucratic procedures meant to allow French and Italian authorities to choose the number and the kind of workers to be sent to France. All this can explain why, during most of the period, Italians migrating legally to France were so much fewer than what both French and Italian officials had initially planned.

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bureaucracy migrants experience France migrant worker immigrant population