The contemporary migratory context in Europe is best summarized by the word "crisis": "migrant crisis", "humanitarian crisis", "reception crisis", "hospitality crisis". The very term by definition refers to a sudden, sharp, unexpected phenomenon. This is why a so-called "migration crisis" cropped up in France in media and political discourse. However, it is by no means new. It so turns out that both of us have focused, in our research work, on earlier migratory experiences, namely those of women and men who are now in their sixties, who left Algeria and Morocco to come to France in the 1950s and 1960s, alone or with their families. What is common to the narratives of the people we interviewed is the precariousness and vulnerability experienced when they arrived in France, which for some is still part of their everyday life today. All of them have experienced shantytowns, hovels, insalubrious digs, makeshift accommodation with a relative, hunger, cold, the absence or violation of their rights, police checks and fear. Such precariousness, linked to the inhospitality of the institutional reception of immigrants in France, is epitomized by the "encamping of the world" (Agier, 2011). The "shantytown phenomenon" is "almost consubstantial with the migratory fact itself and (...) is therefore nothing new" (Chavanon, Leblanc, 2018). Thus, it is with this historical perspective in mind that we discuss in this article the concept of (in)hospitality and its implications in the daily lives of today's elderly immigrants. In an age of globalisation, we are faced with the spread and multiplication of border situations -whether physical, legal, or social. Beyond the quaintness of the term "hospitality", we understand it to be used here, following F. Brugère and G. Le Blanc, as a "journey" from "helping" to "welcoming" and ultimately to "belonging". These authors argue that the various stages and concrete actions of hospitality are by rights to be identified in infra-politics and a "hospitality counter-policy" (Brugère, Le Blanc, 2017). Faced with inhospitable states, emerging individual and collective initiatives are taken into account here.
