COVER N. 310 - FRANCE

Postmark: Premier Jour Centenaire de l'immigration polonaise, 42 Roche-la-Molière 01.09.2023

Posted on the 1st September; Received on the 7th September 2023

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A stamp that is much more than a piece of paper with images on it. Thanks you so much Eric for this very nice cover with a quite timely stamp issue, at least in what concerns its subject in general terms: immigration. 

I know the stamp addresses a quite particular moment in history but one cannot but think how (or if) things would be rather different today, just one hundred years past.

Other that the classic definition for the terms, I think that we tend to analyse them not from a operational point of view, according to the direction of their flow, but from a much more egocentred standpoint, based on our own experiences and how we think our local, national societies interact or should interact with those that are now part of it, for the better or the worse.

Migrations: the displacement of people from their place of living to other places in search of better standards of living, a nicer future for them and theirs.

Emigration: migration viewed from the standpoint of those that migrate.

Immigration: migration viewed from our standpoint, the view of those that most of the time are in the more comfortable side of the equation.

Mine is a country of emigrants, immigrants in many a country all over the world, from Europe (Paris is third largest Portuguese city, right after Lisbon and Porto...) to the Americas, from the Hawaiian Islands to the south of Africa,... it is hard to find a place where there are no Portuguese living.

And yet, here, it is easy to ear the same voices that cry against those who seek nothing other than a future.

No one migrates just because, I believe. But yes, migratory flows have reached an unprecedented dimension, which are hardly manageable at some places, due to several factors we all are aware of but seem not to want or at least try to address properly.

It is an explosive mix:  exponential population growth; climatic crisis; political unrest; religious fanaticism; wealth concentration... Those who have nothing to lose will risk nothing, so they take to the road, most times exploited by the absolute amoral criminal organisations that promise them Eldorados where there are but deserts....

A vicious cycle: from destitute in one's own place, to destitute and paperless in  a strange, foreign place...

And still they come.... for they have nothing to loose... and the tension escalates... the world turned into a pressure cooker...

It is high time the world addresses this global problem in a far more efficient way than just talking about it, but sadly, what we see are tensions escalating everywhere... yesterday Syria,  Yemen, now Ukraine,  Israel and Palestine...

One hundred years ago, in the aftermath of the War to end all Wars (an apt  definition, isn't it?....) France had no human resources to recompose itself, its men laying by the hundred thousands in the poppy fields of  Ypres, the Somme, Verdun...

So France turned to Poland a state that had just been created, issued out of the defeat of the Autro-Hungarian Empire, for help, for a workforce to foster economic development, for building its future..

The two states signed an  agreement making it possible for Polish workers to come to France to work with a working contract and  benefitting from the same payment conditions  applicable to French workers.

This brought along a significant influx of Polish workers, mainly to work as miners in the North of France, but even if they would integrate in time, and even if they had come at France's request, the process was not exempt of the prejudiced views that are common place nowadays.

It is in our nature to blame the others... maybe we should do it in front of a mirror, from time to time!

The very beautiful 1,80 € stamp celebrating one hundred years of Polish Immigration was issued in celebration of this historical fact by la Poste on 01SET2023.

On it, the images of a  Polish woman dressing in traditional attire and a miner evocate those Polish workers that came to France to help get it on its feet again from the rubble of WW! A doctor is also present, a second generation Franco-Polish citizen... integration and social promotion...(if things were so simple...)

The drawings, and the legend "Centenary of the Polish Immigration" are inscribed in the colours of the French and Polish Flags - red blue and white - as a mark of fraternity between the two countries, being complement by the hope in a brighter future represented by the green colour which is also present.