Romanians in France

Romanians in France
Total population
	133,000 Romanian-born immigrants as of 2019 (naturalized French citizens with Romanian ancestry are not included in this figure)
Regions with significant populations
	Paris, Île-de-France, Strasbourg, Mulhouse, Île-de-France, Aquitaine, Languedoc-Roussillon, Midi-Pyrénées, Brittany, Poitou-Charentes, Corsica, Centre-Val de Loire, Limousin, Pays de la Loire, Lower Normandy, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Languages
	Romanian, French
Religion
	Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Atheism, Irreligion
Related ethnic groups
	Romanian diaspora

The Romanians in France are French citizens of Romanian heritage who are born in Romania and live as immigrants in France or are born in France from a Romanian immigrant family that came to France in the early 20th century. As of 2019, there were 133,000 Romanian-born citizens living in France,^[2] and there is an unknown number of French citizens with Romanian ancestry.

History

Romanians had registered a presence on France's soil since the first part of the 19th century. The first Romanians that arrived at that time were mainly rich students who came to study, principally in science and physics domains. Most of them returned to Romania after finishing their studies, although a significant number remained in France. During World War I, some Romanian soldiers were sent to France when the Kingdom of Romania joined the Allies in 1916, to help French troops in the fight against Germany.^{[citation needed]}

An important figure of the Romanian-French population arrived in France in the 1950s, after the end of the war, in a period when both Romania and France were experiencing a very difficult period in their history, and were still recovering from the disasters caused by the conflict. Most of the Romanian population settled in Paris, Lille and other big cities in the north of France.^{[citation needed]}

Another large wave of Romanian emigrants made their way in France in the 1990s, after the fall of Communism in Romania, caused by the Romanian Revolution of 1989. After that important event, millions of Romanians left their homeland in order to come to the West, to the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, France, United Kingdom, Spain, etc., where up to this day they still form significant communities. More than half of the present-day number of Romanian-French arrived after 1990.^{[citation needed]}

French language in Romania

English and French are the main foreign languages taught in schools.^[4] In 2010, the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie identifies 4,756,100 French speakers in the country.^[5] According to the 2012 Eurobarometer, English is spoken by 59% of Romanians, French is spoken by 25%.^[6]

Notable people

Constantin Brâncuși	George Enescu	Emil Cioran	Elvira Popescu	Tristan Tzara	Eugène Ionesco	Vladimir Cosma
Sonia Rykiel	Radu Mihăileanu	Michèle Laroque	Cédric Pioline	Roxana Mărăcineanu	Ana Filip	Cyprien Iov

Art

Constantin Brâncuși (1876–1957), sculptor and painter
Margaret Cossaceanu (1893–1980), sculptor
Philippe Cara Costea [fr] (1925–2006), painter and sculptor
Horia Damian (1922–2012), painter and sculptor
Natalia Dumitresco (1915–1997), painter
Tania Mouraud (b. 1942), contemporary artist
Stefan Ramniceanu (b. 1954), painter and visual artist
Radu Varia (b. 1940), art historian

Film and television

Jean Aurel (1925–1996), film director and screenwriter
Claude Berri (1934–2009), film director, producer and screenwriter (Romanian mother)
Lorànt Deutsch (b. 1975), actor (Romanian mother)
Julie Dreyfus (b. 1966), actress
Jany Holt (1909–2005), actress
Eva Ionesco (b. 1965), actress, film director and screenwriter
Michèle Laroque (b. 1960), actress and screenwriter (Romanian mother)
Lana Marconi (1917–1990), actress
Alexandre Mihalesco (1883–1974), actor
Radu Mihăileanu (b. 1958), film director and screenwriter
Elvira Popescu (1894–1993), actress
Josiane Stoléru (b. 1949), actress
Laurent Terzieff (1935–2010), actor
Anamaria Vartolomei (b. 1999), actress

Literature

Linda Baros (b. 1981), poet
Marthe Bibesco (1886–1973), poet
Emil Cioran (1911–1995), essayist
Petru Dumitriu (1924–2002), novelist
Mircea Eliade (1907-1986), historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago
Constantin Gheorghiu (1916–1992), novelist
Paul Goma (1935–2020), novelist
Eugène Ionesco (1909–1994), playwright
Salim Jay (b. 1951), novelist (Romanian mother)
Anna de Noailles (1876–1933), poet
Dumitru Țepeneag (b. 1937), novelist
Tristan Tzara (1896–1963), poet, playwright and founder of the Dada movement
Elena Văcărescu (1864–1947), poet
Matei Vișniec (b. 1956), novelist

Music

Sergiu Celibidache (1912–1996), conductor and composer
Marius Constant (1925–2004), composer and conductor
Vladimir Cosma (b. 1940), composer, conductor and violinist
Francis Dreyfus (1940–2010), record producer
George Enescu (1881–1955), composer, violinist, pianist, and conductor
Mareva Galanter (b. 1979), singer and former Miss France 1999
Costin Miereanu (b. 1943), composer
Horațiu Rădulescu (1942–2008), composer
Lydie Solomon (b. 1982), pianist
Pierre Vassiliu (1937–2014), singer and songwriter

Politics

Lionnel Luca (b. 1954), member of the National Assembly of France
Roxana Mărăcineanu (b. 1975), current Minister of Youth and Sports of France
Lionel Stoléru (1937–2016), politician
Nicolae Titulescu (1882–1941), politician

Sports

Anne-Marie Bănuță (b. 1991), footballer
Ania Monica Caill (b. 1995), alpine skier
Alexandra Dascalu (b. 1991), volleyball player
Ana Filip, (b. 1989), basketball player
Steve Malonga [fr] (b. 1985), rugby union player (Romanian mother)
Viorel Moldovan (b. 1972), footballer and manager
Victoria Muntean (b. 1997), tennis player
Rodica Nagel (b. 1970), long-distance runner
Cédric Pioline (b. 1969), tennis player (Romanian mother)
Rudi Prisăcaru (b. 1970), handballer
Jean-Charles Skarbowsky (b. 1975), kickboxer (Romanian mother)
Tudor Stroe [fr] (b. 1993), rugby union player
Cynthia Vescan (b. 1992), freestyle wrestler
Victor Zvunka (b. 1951), footballer and manager

Other

Antoine Bibesco (1878–1951), diplomat
Henri Coandă (1886–1972), inventor and aerodynamics pioneer
Paul Cornu (1881-1944), engineer designing the world's first successful manned rotary wing aircraft
Alain Cribier (b. 1945), cardiologst, world's first performer of the transcatheter aortic valve implantation
Mattei Dogan (1920–2010), sociologist
Cyprien Iov (b. 1989), comedian and YouTube personality
Constantin Levaditi (1874–1953), microbiologist
Eli Lotar (1905–1969), photographer and cinematographer
Henri Negresco (1870–1920), founder of the Hotel Negresco in Nice
Gabriel Badea-Päun (b. 1973), art historian
Valentin Poénaru (b. 1932), mathematician
Alexandru Proca (1897–1955), physicist
Élisabeth Roudinesco (b. 1944), historian and psychoanalyst
Sonia Rykiel (1930–2016), fashion designer
Nicolas Trifon (1949–2023), academic, editor and linguist