The French government have recently published latest figures on the number of immigrants in France, including those from the UK and other EU countries.

According to Insee, the French national statistical office, there are over 5 million immigrants living in France, accounting for 8% of the population.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the history of France, the largest group of immigrants comes from Algeria.

The analysis shows that there were 142,949 British nationals living in France in 2007, up from 125,000 in 1999, a 14% increase in eight years. The figures exclude second homes, of which there are believed to be around 200,000, a figure difficult to confirm.

If press reports are to be believed, there has been a net migration of Brits from France in the last few years, but we will need to await the publication of later figures to find out if this is indeed the case.

The composition of the over 1 million 'other' nationalities are not provided by Insee.

The following table gives the number of immigrants in France by country of birth.