> I think the actual reason is something like a vast western empire promoting diversity as a good thing for your country.
The diversity train is a relatively new phenomenon.
EU expansion to the East had many factors. One of them being to have less barriers to get a cheap seasonal workforce pick vegetables in western EU countries [1].
Go back a few more decades: Germany in particular asked hundreds of thousands of people from Turkey to immigrate into Germany to help rebuild it after WW2. It's now the biggest foreign-origin population in Germany.
> Germany in particular asked hundreds of thousands of people from Turkey to immigrate into Germany to help rebuild it after WW2.
Not quite, because the earliest wave of Turkish immigrants came after the migration agreement between Turkey and Germany in 1961 (and Germany was rebuilt at that time). The reasons for this agreement – initiated by Turkey – were curiously complex and not simply economical ones.
The diversity train is a relatively new phenomenon.
EU expansion to the East had many factors. One of them being to have less barriers to get a cheap seasonal workforce pick vegetables in western EU countries [1].
Go back a few more decades: Germany in particular asked hundreds of thousands of people from Turkey to immigrate into Germany to help rebuild it after WW2. It's now the biggest foreign-origin population in Germany.
Not sure about France though.
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/business/europe-labor-rig...