L’insertion linguistique par le bénévolat ? 

Abstract

In a sociological survey on volunteering conducted in Nantes in 2020, individuals living in exile emphasized their interest in practicing French in their associative work. This concern reminds us of the insistence of recent migratory policies on language learning mechanisms, and invites us to question the complex links between language proficiency and integration. This article is based on interviews and observations of exiled volunteers in three associations in Nantes, with a qualitative approach, attentive to the migratory, social and administrative trajectories of the respondents. At first, volunteering may appear to be a privileged moment of linguistic and professional integration. But the limits of this tactic later emerge. The need to resort to volunteering underlines the difficulties generated by the administrative constraints and the integration system, which in a contradictory injunction, require rapid integration while preventing access to the resources of work and its forms of socialization.

Keywords

• Volunteering migration
• language
• integration
• administrative status