Foreign presence in the Southwest French countryside. Contribution of recent initiatives to the social and economic diversification of rural areas

Abstract

Less studied and documented than in the cities, the presence of foreigners in the French countryside remains more discreet and often unknown today. However, new international migrations are crossing rural areas, thus adding to previous movements. In rural southwestern France, our statistical analysis, based on census data obtained from INSEE and available since 1968, reveal their spatial distribution and the process of social diversification at work. This process has led us to question contemporary rural dynamics through the prism of international migration. Whether the migrants encountered in the framework of the CAMIGRI program surveys act directly in the development of new economic and social initiatives, or contribute to their genesis and development, their presence and their point of settlement significantly interfere with the trajectory and the evolutions of certain characteristic of rural places. In the Vienne, the Dordogne and the Ariège, a cross-analysis of three recent initiatives provides food for thought on the emergence of innovative forms of rural entrepreneurship. These types of entrepreneurship have in common that they are situated in the field of arrival of foreigners in rural areas: either through a specific activity (agriculture), or through the creation of services that allow for integration, accompaniment, emergency or permanent welcome. Thus, the anchoring of foreigners, which is part of the current rural dynamics, can be seen as a real perspective of endogenous development and innovation that enhances rural resources by relying on local territorial configurations.Keywords: international migration, territorial anchorage, entrepreneurship, resource, rural