60

The issue of family reunification goes way beyond the issue of integration within the context of the French legal and political debate, focusing on the right of partial family reunification and the ability of France to enable the foreign populations who have been working on French soil for a long time to take root. When this issue is not considered from the mere French legal angle, it can be a relevant criterion of analysis as regards the transnational extended family. Based on a monographic survey of a Tunisian family composed of seven nuclear families from the rural area of Ghoumrassen (region of Tataouine, in the southeast of Tunisia), whose members are divided between Marseille, Tunis and Ghoumrassen, the authors seek to underline various mobility patterns. The analysis aims at showing that these different patterns within a same family clan are linked to the different redefinitions of the migratory project of the “pioneer heads of family”. Even if fifty years ago they experienced a similar migratory path, the transnational experience of these fathers ultimately reveals diverging professional and family paths that affect the second generation.