The Foreign Presence in Metropolitan France - People have immigrated to France for a long time: there were more than one million foreigners in 1881, and nearly three million in 1931. Since that time, their proportion in relation to the total French population has not changed much. The results of the March 1990 census are very likely to show that their number has stabilized since 1982. This stabilization is accompanied by an extensive renewal of the foreign population. This was already the case during the 1975-1982 intercensal period when immigration, departures, births and naturalizations led to a considerable mixing of the population. The proportion of residents of European nationality continues to shrink while that of people of more remo...