Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.32728/flux.2020.2.3
“It was Peugeot that brought us here!”: Trajectories of (Post-) Yugoslav Workers in France through the Prism of Peugeot’s Recruitments, 1965 to the Present
Juliette Ronsin
orcid.org/0000-0002-8152-1208
; Institute of Modern and Contemporary History (IHMC), Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
Abstract
The objective of this article is to analyze the consequences of the political, social, and economic ruptures of Yugoslavia and France on the trajectories of Yugoslavs recruited by the Peugeot company in France after the the 1965 Franco-Yugoslav bilateral agreement on the employment of temporary labor. Using a monographic approach to the case of the employment area of Sochaux, it is clear that (post-)Yugoslav workers went through periods of upheaval and even disillusionment after their arrival in France. This study mainly deals with a generation of men born in the 1940s and 1950s and recruited by Peugeot from 1965 onwards, but also includes other members of the family and the plurality of generations. The history of Yugoslav immigration to France has rarely been the subject of research, although studying it makes it possible to analyze relations between a western country and a communist country and the consequences of the breakup of a country for emigrants living abroad. To do so, this article relies on archival sources (files on foreigners kept in the archives of prefectures, archives of associations, and the Peugeot company’s archives) and on interviews with former workers.
Keywords
Yugoslavia; France; emigration; immigration; labor; workers; working class
Hrčak ID:
248612
URI
Publication date:
23.12.2020.
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