Immigration and its dependence on the welfare system: the case of France

In this paper, we bring to light the link between immigration in France and the appeal to its welfare system: familial assistance, retirement, health, housing assistance, unemployment benefits and RMI (the French Minimum Guaranteed Income). Our results show that when we control for differences in characteristics between natives and immigrants, the over representation of mi grants among the beneficiaries of social protection is noticed only for unemployment benefits and for the RMI (in addition to an over representation also on housing assistance, in particular for the populations born in North Africa.