The Romanians in France are Frenchcitizens of Romanian heritage who are born in Romania and live as immigrants in France or are born in France from a Romanian immigrant family that came to France in the early 20th century. As of 2019, there were 133,000 Romanian-born citizens living in France,[2] and there is an unknown number of French citizens with Romanian ancestry.
Evolution of the number of Romanian nationals living in France (2014-2017)[3]
Romanians had registered a presence on France's soil since the first part of the 19th century. The first Romanians that arrived at that time were mainly rich students who came to study, principally in science and physics domains. Most of them returned to Romania after finishing their studies, although a significant number remained in France. During World War I, some Romanian soldiers were sent to France when the Kingdom of Romania joined the Allies in 1916, to help French troops in the fight against Germany.[citation needed]
An important figure of the Romanian-French population arrived in France in the 1950s, after the end of the war, in a period when both Romania and France were experiencing a very difficult period in their history, and were still recovering from the disasters caused by the conflict. Most of the Romanian population settled in Paris, Lille and other big cities in the north of France.[citation needed]
Another large wave of Romanian emigrants made their way in France in the 1990s, after the fall of Communism in Romania, caused by the Romanian Revolution of 1989. After that important event, millions of Romanians left their homeland in order to come to the West, to the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, France, United Kingdom, Spain, etc., where up to this day they still form significant communities. More than half of the present-day number of Romanian-French arrived after 1990.[citation needed]
English and French are the main foreign languages taught in schools.[4] In 2010, the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie identifies 4,756,100 French speakers in the country.[5] According to the 2012 Eurobarometer, English is spoken by 59% of Romanians, French is spoken by 25%.[6]
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