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.
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]
French language in Romania
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]