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If the mil to assert Us international status still remains vital to France's foreign policy, it cannot explain by itself a policy which has put more and more emphasis on international institutions since the end of the Cold War. Other motives must also betaken into account, notably : admitting its own lack of resources, evaluating the limits of a bilateral approach, wanting to contain us tendencies to unilateral actions and needing to assert its role as a first-class power. France is also attempting to have adopted norms of international conduct which only international institutions can impose. The three cases chosen - reform of the UN, sanctions against Iraq and terrorism -demonstrate the full complexity of the French decision to privilege international action through institutions from now on.

This study deals with two increasingly important aspects of international relations : first, the interpretation of the North-South dynamic of the international System and second, the significance of détente in the Euro-Arabo-African mini-triangle.In his discussion of the first problematic, the author suggests it would be useful to take an interdependence approach towards the analysis of North-South relations, implying that the international system is hexagonal as regards both structure and process and that non-alignment is becoming a sixth pole of influence in the system. More specifically, and taking as a starting point the « depolarization » of the détente process, the author argues that the security objectives of the West European, Arab and African political Systems are in fact interdependent. This interdependence is to be found above all in their interest in diluting the East-West conflict and instituting a policy of détente, the purpose of which is all the more significant for being internal - i.e. the stabilization, legitimization and integration of these political Systems. Since the effects of such a policy will be felt only gradually, these countries find they have a common interest in a complementary strategy whereby the East-West conflict is segmented and intersected by the North-South conflict (intra-alliance, even).The aim of the study is to show that, in the theory of international relations, greater attention should be paid to the motivations and strategies of actors in the South and their impact on the international system in the economic problem areas as well as the political and strategic ones.Because the properties of political reality differ from those of physical reality, the properties of political regularities also differ from those of physical regularises. The regularities we discover are soft. They are soft because they are outcomes of processes that exhibit plastic rather than cast-iron control. They are imbedded in history and involve recurrent « passings-through » of large numbers of human memories, learning processes, human goal seeking impulses, and choices among alternatives. They decay quickly because of the memory, creative searching, and learning that underlie them. Indeed social science itself may contribute to this decay, since learning increasingly include not only learning from experience, but from scientific research itself. Gabriel A. ALMOND et Stephan J. GENCO, « Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics », World Politics, vol. XXIX, n° 4, juillet 1977, pp. 493-494. Ithas become a platitude that the whole world is now interdependent... Yet what a tremendous platitude it is /... If this platitude is unalterably true, its implications must profoundly affect the conditions of human life for the future ; it must transform all our thinking about social organization ; it must modify all our programmes and policies. Clearly we ought to be thinking seriously about it, and asking ourselves what it involves. A. MuiR, The Interdependent World and lts Problems, Boston, Houghton, Mifflin, 1973, p. 1.

The fail of communist ideology and the subsequent breaking up of the old empire has allowed an acceleration of the process of world wide exchange liberalization. Population flow adapts itself to the movement naturally, helped by the development of communications, transportation and transnational networks in different parts of the industrialized world. Conflicts, wars, human rights violations and non democratic Systems also contribute extensively to increase the south-north migratory pressures. This contemporary context has led the international community to consider international migrations to be a major threat to world stability and global security. In this context, the right to seek and to enjoy a safe haven becomes a mere illusion. The survival of the right of asylum is linked to the recognition of the failure of the actual international System. The reality of today's refugee movement calls for new types of solidarities and cooperation which should be inspired by the principles of democracy and human rights protection.

This article looks at the world of professional and qualified migrantsin Europe, and at a statistical minority of graduates of highereducation establishments : ex-Erasmus university graduates. Itfocuses in particular on those who choose the expatriate route as ameans of entry into professional life. Even though they remain aminority in Europe, these flows of young « middleclass » Europeans from the south of the continent and/orfrom mass-education programmes are none the less socially significant.They show that international geographical mobility is increasinglycommon today as a means of moving up the social ladder. But the ins andouts of these expatriate movements are not the same for all thedifferent journeys these involve : they vary with differentpositions on the geographical and social scale.