Polish minority in France - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Poles in France, or the Polish

Poles

thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...

community in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

is one of the oldest in Europe.

About one million people of Polish descent live in France

France

, concentrated in the Nord-Pas de Calais

Nord-Pas de Calais

Nord-Pas de Calais , Nord for short, is one of the 27 regions of France. It consists of the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais, in the north and has a border with Belgium. Most of the region was once part of the Southern Netherlands, within the Low Countries, and gradually became part of France...

region, in the metropolitan area of Lille

Lille

Lille is a city in northern France . It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...

and the coal-mining basin (Bassin Minier) around Lens

Lens, Pas-de-Calais

Lens is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. It is one of France's large Picarde cities along with Lille, Valenciennes, Amiens, Roubaix, Tourcoing, Arras, and Douai.-Metropolitan area:...

and Valenciennes

Valenciennes

Valenciennes is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.It lies on the Scheldt river. Although the city and region had seen a steady decline between 1975 and 1990, it has since rebounded...

. Prominent members of the Polish community in France have included Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

, Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...

(temporarily), Aleksander Chodźko

Aleksander Chodzko

Aleksander Borejko Chodźko was a Polish poet, Slavist, and Iranologist.-Biography:He was born in Krzywicze in Russia , and attended the University of Vilnius...

, Rene Goscinny

René Goscinny

René Goscinny was a French comics editor and writer, who is best known for the comic book Astérix, which he created with illustrator Albert Uderzo, and for his work on the comic series Lucky Luke with Morris and Iznogoud with Jean Tabary.-Early life:Goscinny was born in Paris in 1926, to a family...

, Marie Curie

Marie Curie

Marie Skłodowska-Curie was a physicist and chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes—in physics and chemistry...

, Raymond Kopa

Raymond Kopa

Raymond Kopa , is a former French football offensive midfielder, integral to the French national team of the 1950s....

, Ludovic Obraniak

Ludovic Obraniak

Ludovic Joseph Obraniak is a Polish-French footballer currently playing for Ligue 1 side Lille OSC and the Polish national football team. He primarily plays as an attacking midfielder.-FC Metz:...

, Edward Gierek

Edward Gierek

Edward Gierek was a Polish communist politician.He was born in Porąbka, outside of Sosnowiec. He lost his father to a mining accident in a pit at the age of four. His mother married again and emigrated to northern France, where he was raised. He joined the French Communist Party in 1931 and was...

(who was raised there), Matt Pokora and famous singer Jean-Jacques Goldman

Jean-Jacques Goldman

Jean-Jacques Goldman is a Grammy Awards-winning French singer-songwriter. He is hugely popular in the French-speaking world, and since 2003 was the second-highest-grossing French living pop singer, after Johnny Hallyday.- Biography :...

, the son of a Polish Jew

Alter Mojze Goldman

Alter Mojze Goldman was a Polish Jew who was active in the French Résistance during World War II.He was born in Lublin after the death of his father. He fled to France at the age of fifteen because of anti-Semitism. However, he was disappointed with reality in France and tried Germany...

French Revolution and Napoleonic wars

Large numbers of Poles settled in France during the rule of Napoleon when 100,000 Poles fled Russian rule of Poland in the early 19th century. Many enlisted to fight in the French army, like Józef Antoni Poniatowski

Józef Antoni Poniatowski

Prince Józef Antoni Poniatowski was a Polish leader, general, minister of war and army chief, who became a Marshal of France.-Early Austrian years and war with Turkey:...

, Ludwik Mateusz Dembowski

Ludwik Mateusz Dembowski

Ludwik Mateusz Dembowski , was a Polish general and traveler.After the fall of the Kościuszko Uprising went to France. He served in Polish Legions under Jan Henryk Dąbrowski, with the French Army sent to Santo Domingo....

and many other Polish commanders of the Napoleonic Wars and Polish legionnaires.

Great Emigration (1831-1870)

Most of the Great Emigration

Great Emigration

The Great Emigration was an emigration of political elites from Poland from 1831–1870. Since the end of the 18th century, a major role in Polish political life was played by people who carried out their activities outside the country as émigrés...

of political elites from Poland between 1831–1870 settled in France.

Interwar period

Another wave of Polish migration took place between the two World Wars, when many were hired as contract workers to work temporarily in France. Polish refugees also fled Nazi or Soviet occupation (1940s).

Polish resistance during the Nazi occupation in France

During the Nazi occupation, a specific Polish Resistance group, Polska Organizacja Walki o Niepodleglosc – Organisation Polonaise de Lutte pour l’Indépendance (POWN), was created on September 6, 1941 by the Polish general consul in Paris, A. Kawalkowski (code name Justyn), and fought alongside the French Resistance

French Resistance

The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...

. There were also other Polish Resistance movements in France, most notably former soldiers from the Jaroslaw Dabrowski Brigade who had fought in the International Brigades

International Brigades

The International Brigades were military units made up of volunteers from different countries, who traveled to Spain to defend the Second Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939....

during the Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

went on in their struggle against Fascism

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

in the FTP-MOI

FTP-MOI

The Francs-tireurs et partisans – main-d'œuvre immigrée were a sub-group of the Francs-tireurs et partisans organization, a component of the French Resistance. A wing composed mostly of foreigners, the MOI maintained an armed force to oppose the German occupation of France during World War II...

. Since 1941 the PPS

Polish Socialist Party

The Polish Socialist Party was one of the most important Polish left-wing political parties from its inception in 1892 until 1948...

activists in Northern France had also founded two resistance movements, Organisation S and Orzel Bialy (White Eagle). In 1944 Polish Committees for National Liberation (PKWN) were set up to support the Communist Polish army. There were clashes between POWN resistants, under the authority of the London-based Polish government in exile

Polish government in Exile

The Polish government-in-exile, formally known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in Exile , was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which...

, and the Communist FTP-MOI resistants.

French Poles after WWII

When the Communists took power in Poland, several thousands French Poles decided to go and live in the "Socialist paradise", like French Armenians

Armenians in France

Armenians in France are ethnic Armenians living within the modern republic of France. Like much of the Armenian Diaspora, most Armenians immigrated to France after the Armenian Genocide of 1915–1923. Others came later, fleeing conflicts in places like Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Iran...

did in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic.

There are estimates of 100,000 to 200,000 Poles living in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

and many E.U. program guest workers in regions of the south (including the cities of Arles

Arles

Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....

, Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

and Perpignan

Perpignan

-Sport:Perpignan is a rugby stronghold: their rugby union side, USA Perpignan, is a regular competitor in the Heineken Cup and seven times champion of the Top 14 , while their rugby league side plays in the engage Super League under the name Catalans Dragons.-Culture:Since 2004, every year in the...

).

A number of prominent Frenchmen have Polish roots, visible in their surnames, most notably politician Michel Poniatowski

Michel Poniatowski

Michel Poniatowski was a Polish Prince and French politician. He was a founder of the Independent Republicans and a part of the administration for President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Poniatowski served as Minister of Health from 1973 to 1974 and Minister of the Interior in the d'Estaing government...

, late trade unionist Henri Krasucki

Henri Krasucki

Henri Krasucki was a French trade-unionist, former secretary general of the Confédération générale du travail from 1982 to 1992.-Early life :...

and the founder of the Traditionalist Catholic

Traditionalist Catholic

Traditionalist Catholics are Roman Catholics who believe that there should be a restoration of many or all of the liturgical forms, public and private devotions and presentations of Catholic teachings which prevailed in the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council...

movement of Fraternite Notre Dame

Fraternite Notre Dame

Fraternite Notre Dame is a Traditional Catholic Order of Bishops, priests, Friars and Nuns. There is also a Third Order attached to them.-Origins:...

and Bishop Jean Marie Kozik.

External links

List of Polish associations in France