When the Global City Chooses Its Expatriates. Reasons Why Highly Qualified Tunisian Professionals Move to Paris

Since the end of the 1990s (Wagner, 1998; O'Reilly, 2000), research on migration has taken a growing interest in ‘expatriates’. Until now, however, most of this research has focused on white migration from Western Europe and North America. There are far fewer studies of expatriates from the Global South, especially those from Africa. What is more, the term ‘expatriate’ itself is rarely used to describe these non-white and non-Western ‘privileged migrants’ (Croucher, 2012), making the migration category an implicit racial category. Yet a growing number of North African nationals are working in Europe in professional jobs similar to those commonly regarded as ‘expatriates’ (engineers, doctors, lecturers, etc.). Of the 18,000 new ‘talent passport’ residence permits issued in France in 2022 to non-European nationals, more than 3,000 were issued to Tunisian nationals (17%), making Tunisia the main beneficiary of the scheme, ahead of India (2,000, 12%) and Morocco (1,900, 11%).

Based on a survey of more than 20 semi-directive interviews conducted in Paris and Tunis with Tunisian engineers, consultants, doctors and researchers working or planning to work in Paris, the paper sets out to examine their migratory motivations. It shows that, in their case, it is not so much the expatriates who choose their preferred global city than the global city of Paris that chooses its expatriates, in the sense that the choice of destination is largely imposed on them, not only for labour market reasons, but also for linguistic, cultural, family and friendship reasons that have much to do with the colonial history linking France and Tunisia.