Professional Citizenship and Medical Nationalism in France

In principle, the European Union provides for the free movements of workers between its member states. No worker should be discriminated against based solely on nationality, and this applies to most jobs in the public sector. In practice, however, the elimination of nationality criteria for public sector work applies only to workers from EU member states. In the French public health care system, discrimination based on nationality, either of the worker or the worker's diploma, remains salient for ‘third-country’ medical professionals whose qualifications must undergo a lengthy recognition process. In the context of expanding EU integration and anxieties over postcolonial medical migration into Europe, the historical and geographical context for nationality criteria warrants greater attention. This paper suggests that the persistence of nationality restrictions, and their effects on medical professionals seeking recognition for their qualifications in France, lies in the occluded colonial context for their development. This perspective on medical migration requires moving outside the European frame in which nationality restrictions, instantiated in French law during the Third Republic (1870 – 1914) and strengthened further under the Vichy Regime (1940 – 44), have been addressed by historians and policy makers. A more explicitly postcolonial perspective on medical migration's implications for citizenship productively demonstrates how colonial distinctions between French citizens and colonial subjects helped shape the regulatory frameworks that continue to regulate the medical professions in contemporary France.