Migrants’ connections within and beyond borders: insights from the comparison of three categories of migrants in France

Since the mid-1990s, the concept of transnationalism has been increasingly used and discussed. Some authors have contested its novelty, arguing that all types of migrants, including internal ones, tend to remain connected to their home place. In this paper, we provide new quantitative evidence to show that migration, be it internal or international, entails a similar sort of connectedness between places. Using a nationally representative survey carried out in France (TeO, N = 21,761), we systematically compare the transterritorial connections of international migrants, French migrants born abroad and French migrants born in overseas territories. Our findings show that all migrants maintain transborder ties, with particular intensity among French overseas migrants. Owing to border effects, oversenas migrants exhibit higher levels of sociopolitical and “re-migration” connections and are less engaged in economic relations. The results also show that transterritorial connections are affected by similar determinants across the three categories of migrants.