ALFRED SAUVY AND IMMIGRATION

Alfred Sauvy's short paper published in 1946 in the first issue of Population has a rather strange title: Evaluation des besoins de l'immigration francaise (Assessment of French immigration needs). In fact, it concerns neither immigration needs, nor French immigration, but rather the needs of France in terms of immigration. Just after the Liberation, France lacked the necessary manpower to undertake its economic reconstruction, and the idea of recruiting foreign workers, as was done after the First World War, seemed a logical one. Sauvy assumes that this utilitarian attitude to immigration is shared by all; he mentions the major contribution to be made by farmers, construction workers and miners brought in from abroad. With considerable economy of means, Sauvy runs a simulation to determine France's needs in terms of immigration. His stated target is a stationary population as defined by Alfred Lotka, namely an ideal population in which young people are sufficiently numerous and fertile to ensure generation replacement and to maintain the structural balance.