The France of the Little-Middles

Explores the strained reception of the migrants in The Poplars, a housing development in suburban Paris that dates back to the mid-20th centrury. The authors examine tensions within the complex less as a product of racism and xenophobia than of anxiety about social class and the loss of a sense of community that reigned before.

---

The Poplars housing development in suburban Paris is home to what one resident called the “Little-Middles” – a social group on the tenuous border between the working- and middle- classes. In the 1960s The Poplars was a site of upward social mobility, which fostered an egalitarian sense of community among residents. This feeling of collective flourishing was challenged when some residents moved away, selling their homes to a new generation of upwardly mobile neighbors from predominantly immigrant backgrounds. This volume explores the strained reception of these migrants, arguing that this is less a product of racism and xenophobia than of anxiety about social class and the loss of a sense of community that reigned before.