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The large contemporary French migrant population - currently estimated by the French Consulate at around 300-400, 000 in the UK, the majority living in London and the South-East - remains 'absent' from studies on migration, and these apparently 'a-typical' migrants are considered in a study of migrant food history in Britain not to have left traces as a migrant community. Over the centuries, the presence of various French communities in London has varied significantly as far as as numbers are concerned, but what does not change is their simultaneous 'visibility' and 'invisibility' in accounts of the history of the capital: even when relatively 'visible' at certain historical moments, they still often remain hidden in its histories. At times the French in London are described as a 'sober, well-behaved. and law-abiding community' at others, they appeared as a 'foreign body in the city'. This article reflects on the dynamics at play between a migrant community associated with high cultural capital (so much so that it is often emluated by those who are not French) and the host culture perception of and relationship to it in order to consider what this may 'mean' for the French (and Francophone) migrant experience. French gastronomy and culinary knowledge is taken as an example of material culture and of cultural capital 'on display' specifically in the activity of dining out, especially in French restaurants, or those influenced by French gastronomy. The social activity of dining out is replete with displays of knowledge (linguistic, culinary, cultural literacy), of modes of behaviour, of public identity, and of rituals strictly codified in both migrant and host culture. Dining out is also an emotional and politicallly-charged activity, fraught with feelings of suspicion (what is in the food? what does the chef get up to in the kitchen?), of status, of class and gender distinctions. This article considers the ways in which the migrant French citizen of London may be considered as occupying an ambiguous position at different times in history, at once in possession of knowledge and of the need to negotiate complex cultural encounters in the connections between identity and the symbolic status of food (in food production, food purveying and food consumption).

This book examines, for the first time, the history of the social, cultural, political and economic presence of the French in London, and explores the multiple ways in which this presence has contributed to the life of the city. The capital has often provided a place of refuge, from the Huguenots in the 17th century, through the period of the French Revolution, to various exile communities during the 19th century, and on to the Free French in the Second World War.It also considers the generation of French citizens who settled in post-war London, and goes on to provide insights into the contemporary French presence by assessing the motives and lives of French people seeking new opportunities in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It analyses the impact that the French have had historically, and continue to have, on London life in the arts, gastronomy, business, industry and education, manifest in diverse places and institutions from the religious to the political via the educational, to the commercial and creative industries.