For centuries, France has fought, built and reinvented thanks to and with its foreigners, its immigrants. This is a historical truth that the National Museum of the History of Immigration recalls. Journey to discover your new permanent path.
Located in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, in the emblematic colonial building of the Palais de la Porte Dorée, the National Museum of the History of Immigration reopened its doors in June 2023, after three years of work. And in its new permanent exhibition, the museum has decided to place history at the center, through eleven landmark dates in immigration and French history. Because what is told there, on nearly 1,800 m2 and with more than 600 objects, is the history of France and its immigrants, France being the oldest country of immigration in Europe.
At all times and everywhere, migrations have nourished and shaped the face of the peoples, nations and cultures of the world. At all times and everywhere, the foreigner, the non-native, the newcomer has aroused fear and rejection, especially in times of crisis and withdrawal. In this journey, the museum aims to take and share another look at immigration, by questioning how immigrants made France, how they were welcomed, perceived over time, how the nationality code and the Foreigners’ rights have evolved through legislation that is sometimes populist, sometimes pragmatic, often opportunistic.
There is no doubt in any case that from 1685, the date of the Code Noir and the Huguenot exile, to the engagement of colonial troops in the two world wars through foreign resistance, the destiny of the country and all those who came there to find refuge, to live, to work and to struggle, is common. And at a time of the so-called “asylum and immigration” law and the announcement of a historic revision of land law in Mayotte, this salutary journey through history allows us to gain perspective and perspective.
Learn more:
– On the permanent route from the National Museum of the History of Immigration
– On temporary exhibitions and museum activities
– On the Red Poster and the fight of Missak Manouchiancommunist Armenian resistance fighter who entered the Pantheon on February 21, 2024, with his fellow resistance fighters.