karine-in-oz

Hi guys,

A quick update on the emigration numbers for French people (I don't why a friend of mine told there was 138 000 French working holiday visa holders, but I think she must have been mistaken with total number of VWH incl. their 2nd year renewals): 

As of  30/06/2011

3 400 French tourists out of 167 000 total
1 700 French students out of 333 000 total
9 300 French Working Holiday Visa out of 108 000 total
2 700 French 457 (Long Term Business Sponsored Visa) out of 131 000 total
1 100 French Permanent Residents addition out of 213 000 total

According to "La Maison des Français à l’étranger", there should be approx 75 000 French people living in Australia, incl 2/3 with dual citizenship, as of 31/12/2011. For some reasons, I always feel that they are many French people in town, but compared to British, Irish, Chinese, Indian and other Asian countries, we are more of a minority (but maybe not in Bondi or Manly!)

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/statistics/immigration-update/update-2010-11.pdf

http://www.mfe.org/index.php/Portails-Pays/Australie

Regarding the refugees, below an update for 2011

"The number of new asylum-seekers making individual claims worldwide rose for the third year in a row - to 922,500. The main destinations for asylum-seekers were South Africa (222,000 claims), the United States (47,900), France (42,100), Malaysia (40,000), and Ecuador (35,500).

In comparison, Australia received 6,206 asylum claims last year."

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/60refugee.htm

http://unhcr.org.au/unhcr/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=46&Itemid=92