The maintenance of immigrants' loyalty to their country of origin is a matter of great concern for the governments of the sending countries. The author demonstrates that, driven by the economic need to maintain migration flows, sending countries set up cultural activities to promote a form of "long-distance nationalism" (Anderson 1998). The politics of Algeria, Portugal and Morocco are analyzed, successively, along with the reaction of the French administration (migrant welfare administration and interior services) from 1962 to 1975. Although French administrative officials were initially reluctant to accept any foreign intervention in their handling of immigrant populations, they later found it useful, the author argues, because it helped them control these populations. In the 1970s however, immigrants mobilized against the control that both the French administration and the government of their country of origin exerted upon them. The paper allows for a better understanding of determinants of the experience of migrants during a period of large waves of migrants in the 1960s.