At the base of the state and social policies towards immigrants,there are always the reactions of local people: these, however, can be concrete or only feared. Also, if concrete, may be the result of a spontaneous
motion, or can be caused by a particular social group or by those in power. On this question we have a very rich and very interesting literature. However, the analyses are generally targeted at the present or, at most, at the immediate past. Instead the problem is much older so that the evolution of the modern State is often linked to immigration. A particularly interesting case is that of acceptance of Italians in France, because their migration dates to medieval times and it is therefore contemporary to the development of the French state and the French national consciousness.pd
