History of East & South-East immigrations in France

During the First World War, 92,000 Indochinese and nearly 140,000 Shandong Chinese were recruited to work or fight in France. After the war, most of the Chinese returned to China, but a few thousand remained in France. In the context of the Second World War, 27,000 Chinese Army riflemen and workers were also recruited. In the 1960s, between 30,000 and 35,000 boat people from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos arrived in France. Many of these refugees came to live in the 13th arrondissement and created the largest Asian quarter in all of Europe. Another wave of immigration occurred around 1975 after the fall of Saigon. 145,000 Indochinese refugees settled in France between 1975 and 1977, 50 to 60% of whom were of Chinese origin. 70% of the boat people who left Vietnam were ethnic Chinese, and this proportion was even higher among those who immigrated to western countries; most of the people in the 13th arrondissement from ex-Indochina are Teochew, and their families left China to settle in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos (most of the Teochew in the 13th arrondissement come from Cambodia) and then fled the communist regime’s seizure of power in the 1970s.