This video is from France’s Musee de l’Histoire de l’Immigration, located in the 12 arrondissement, next to the Bois de Vincennes.

It tells the story of immigration in France through the lens of historiography, corroborated by over 350 archival documents that can be found in the museum’s collection.

The video project consists of seven sections, including the prologue. It can be navigated by clicking on the distinct periods that appear in chronological order, in the fashion of a timeline.     Each era has a video of approximately five minutes dedicated to it.

Immigrants, the film asserts “were indispensable in the markets, in business, in the cultural landscape.” Yet not all were prominent, many came as artisans and farmers.The film notes that the French Revolution transforms the perception of who is a ‘foreigner and who is from the nation. It proclaims that all who are born in France are to be considered nationals. It identifies early industrial era waves of immigrants, such as German political and religious exiles, Jewish immigrants fleeing Tsarist persecution, both of which are accompanied with archival images depicting their presence in France.

Of course, historicizing the immigrant in France is bold when the subject is such a contentious contemporary political debate.