Bougnats Auvergne Migration France Paris

How the deep heart of France came to Paris

As the debate over immigration rages across the front pages of newspapers and in the nightly TV talk shows across France, it’s easy to forget that modern France – our concept of Paris and the country it represents – is itself less than 250 years old.  It’s easy to forget, too, that what we think of as “France” today was built in large part by massive waves of internal migration.  And one of the largest of all these “immigrant” populations…came to Paris from the Auvergne, in the Deep Heart of France!