Chinese diaspora in France
He was brought back by Jesuit missionaries to the Versailles court of Louis XIV, the Sun King in the late 17th century, and oversaw a collection of manuscripts sent as a gift from the Kangxi Emperor of Qing China.
This tiny Chinese population during the Belle Époque period mainly consisted of students, journalists, intellectuals, as well as merchants.
In 1902, Li Shizeng and Zhang Jingjiang arrived in Paris as "embassy students" accompanying Ambassador to France Sun Baoqi.
Li soon left this official position to study biology at Ecole Pratique d'Agriculture du Chesnoy [de] in Montargis, a town 120 kilometres south of Paris.
Over the next two decades, Li, Zhang, and Wu established a number of institutions of Sino-French friendship such as the Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement.
Mainly aged between 20 and 35 and hailing from the northern Chinese provinces of Hebei, Jiangsu and particularly Shandong, as well as Wenzhou, they served as labour in the rear echelons or helped build munitions depots, repair railways and roads, and unloaded ships at Allied ports.
An estimated ten thousand died in the war effort, victims of either shelling, landmines, poor treatment or the worldwide Spanish flu epidemic of 1918.
[12] The first rooted Chinese community in Paris was based first around the Gare de Lyon in the east of the capital, then near the Arts et Métiers metro station in the 3rd arrondissement.
Taking over the wholesale trade lost by the Jews during the German occupation of France during World War II, the Chinese community continues to exist today.
[16] After the Fall of Saigon in 1975, ethnic Chinese from Vietnam were heavily persecuted by the new communist government and faced expulsion from the newly reunified country.
Ethnic Chinese from Laos and Cambodia, the other two former French Indochina colonies, also arrived in France after this period of conflict for similar reasons.
During the period, the high-rise neighbourhood in the southeast of Paris' 13th arrondissement, where the city's Quartier Asiatique (Asian Quarter) is located, saw significant population growth.
[18] The area contains many Chinese inhabitants predominantly living in high-rise apartments, in addition to large Vietnamese and Laotian communities.
[21] As in their former countries, ethnic Chinese from Indochina are heavily involved in commerce, especially among the generation of immigrants, and average income levels are above the national median.
[20] This division of the Chinese community in France is rooted in history, the level of assimilation among groups, and to a lesser extent, politics.
While Chinese from Indochina arrived in France largely as Vietnam War refugees, Wenzhounese and Dongbei migrants came for economic purposes, with some having an initial intent to return to China after a few years.
Although the Wenzhounese form the oldest Chinese group in France, they are the least assimilated, largely staying within their communities and interacting with the French populace chiefly through business and among the younger generation, education.
In fact, a vast majority of community members usually associate themselves with the Vietnamese, Laotian or Cambodian populations in France (depending on their country of origin) instead.
