The first refugees were French. That’s not to say there weren’t people long before the existence of France who were forced to flee their native lands for safety abroad. The word derives from réfugié — someone seeking a hiding place — which became “refugee” in English after thousands of Huguenots crossed the Channel to flee the violent anti-Protestant campaign that Louis XIV unleashed on non-Catholic Christians in 1685.

The first emigres were French, too. Though émigré simply means emigrant, it has a snootier pedigree in English usage because it was first applied to French nobles and royalist partisans who fled the 1789 revolution that culminated in the guillotining of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

Soon after, it became the word of choice for politically, financially or socially promine

See Full Page