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LIVING IN FRANCE

Why we’re becoming French: ‘It’s far more than just Brexit’

The number of British nationals in France seeking to become French has rocketed since Brexit, but it's not just Britain's future departure from the EU that is motivating people to gain French citizenship. Here those who have applied tell us their motives.

Published: 17 November 2017 17:34 CET
Why we're becoming French: 'It's far more than just Brexit'
Photo: Luke Legay/Flickr

Scores of Brits living in France are in a hurry to become French.

The number of applications for naturalisation has trippled since June 2016 with Britain's vote to leave the EU acting as a significant accelerator.

For many, the motivations for gaining French nationality are purely practical, but not always. It appears the UK's vote to leave the EU has left many feeling estranged from their country of origin and as a result feel as though they belong in France.

Rebecca Thatcher lives in Ariège southwestern France with her husband and two young children; she runs a small business advisory company, while her husband works as a builder.

“I feel more French since the vote and more ashamed to be classed as British,” Thatcher told The Local.

“I was going to apply [for citizenship] anyway, as I’ve lived in France for 13 years now, but [the vote to leave] has sped up my decision to a matter of urgency,” she said.

She's not the only British person living n France to have felt a shift in loyalty from their country of birth to their country of residence since the referendum.

“Gaining French nationality will help me feel distanced from the sadness and shame I felt when my country voted to leave the EU, which I see as a force for progress, equality and respect,” a 28-year-old business development manager living in Paris, who preferred to remain anonymous told The Local.

“I felt ashamed to admit that I was British after the results of the referendum, but more so now by the economic and political aftermath. I hardly recognise the UK politically anymore,” he added.

According to figures obtained by Le Monde earlier this year the number of British people in France applying to become French citizens rose from 385 in 2015 to 1,363 in 2016.

READ ALSO:

France sees 254 percent jump in Brits seeking French citizenship since Brexit

These figures predate the official start of Article 50 negotiations in March this year, and though there is no national data for 2017 yet, the regional figures suggest that the volume of applications is only going to grow.

In order to qualify for French citizenship, foreign nationals living in France need to have resided in the country continuously for five years – with some exceptions for refugees, those who have studied in France and those who have served in the military – and to have a clean legal and tax record.

The application process takes approximately 18 months start to finish meaning many British ‘expats’ are keen to submit their dossiers before the end of negotiations in March 2019, the results of which are still unclear.

READ ALSO: 

Tips for getting French nationality (from Brits who've done it)

Rosie Clifton Van Vilet, who has lived in Paris for 10 years, sent off her dossier for citizenship in May 2016, just a month before the EU referendum.

“I didn’t think that we would vote to leave the EU – but I thought it would be useful to have nationality anyway,” said the 34-year-old marketing manager.

“As it turned out, when the referendum took place and they did vote to leave the EU, I was happy to have got in there before it actually happened.”

Van Vilet, who hails from Otley in West Yorkshire says that the result of the EU poll has made her feel alienated from the country she grew up in.

“I felt quite relieved for having got out of Britain before they made what I think was a terrible mistake in voting to leave the EU. I felt like I couldn’t reconcile this choice and I couldn’t understand why they would have voted this way. It definitely made me feel a lot more distanced from Britain: I was quite pleased not to be there.”

David Abbott, who moved to Niort in western France with his wife in 2004, was already looking into applying for nationality before the EU referendum result, but was also spurred on by the UK’s vote to leave.

“We have long looked on France as our country and our home,” he told The Local.

“Each year that has passed has seen us become more and more estranged from the UK and the path it is following. Having studied philosophy and history I am more in tune with the ethos of France.”

“At the age of 71, I do not want to be thrown out of the country I love. I have much more in common and get on with French people rather than English people.”

Steve Alan, a 33-year-old writer living in Paris, will hit the five-year minimum residency requirement in August 2018, at which point he is planning to apply for nationality immediately.

“For me, getting French nationality is a way of acknowledging everything the country's done for me, recognising that I wouldn't be who I am today if it wasn't for my time in France,” he told The Local.

“If anything, Brexit has just made me feel more European. I'm proud of where I've come from but equally proud to be where I am.”

READ ALSO: Ten reasons why you should think about becoming French

Ten reasons why you should become French

But not everyone is willing to go down that route.

Some fear the bureacracy, the long wait and the language test. Others feel the need to know that their rights in France are protected once the British government and the EU agree a deal. 

Others simply feel they shouldn't have to, including Christopher Chantrey, chairman of the British Community Committee of France.

He told a UK parliament committee: “We are British citizens. We are proud to be British and we want to continue to be British until the end of our lives.”

But if Brexit is spurring France-loving Brits to overcome bureaucratic hurdles to ensure their future in France, Americans living in here have long grappled with the administrative intricacies of securing their place in the country. 

Sheila Suarez de Flores, a 31-year-old team and organisation coach from Pennsylvania, and her husband Austin Flores, 34, a web developer and business owner, are in the first stages of preparing their own nationality application.

For them, the motivations for seeking nationality are also both practical and emotional.

“We actually do feel French, me and my husband; we miss it when we’re not here. A lot of being French and why we want to stay here is the tradition of it, the ceremony, the dinners that are long with good conversation,” Sheila told The Local.

“As time goes on I feel more and more distanced from my home country. At the same time, I know that I’ll never fully, 100-percent be integrated into France: I just missed a lot of history by not being raised here.”

She is particularly looking forward to being able to vote in France, a feeling intensified by the result of last year’s presidential election in the US.

“I’m very excited about being able to vote. Hopefully I’ll have my citizenship in time for the next election, already I’m contributing, but definitely I want to invest more in the French culture so that we don’t go the same way as America,” she told The Local.

It seems the workload for French immigration officials won't ease anytime soon.

by Hannah Meltzer

For members

TRAVEL NEWS

What’s the deal with passport stamping in France?

There are clear guidelines in place about who should have their passport stamped when they enter or leave France - but the letter of the law doesn't always seem to be applied on the ground. Here's what you need to know.

Published: 17 May 2024 14:24 CEST
What's the deal with passport stamping in France?

When you pass through a French border control post, officers will check your passport and – in some cases – stamp the date of your entry or exit of the country onto one of the blank pages in the booklet.

Although the system should be clear and simple, it becomes complicated when conflicting information is given on the ground.

Here’s what the rules say, and whether it’s really a problem if your passport is incorrectly stamped.

Who should be stamped?

The purpose of the date stamps for entry and exit is to calculate how long you have been in France, and therefore whether you have overstayed your allowed time – whether that is the time allowed by a short-stay Schengen visa or the visa-free 90-day allowance that certain non-EU nationals benefit from. 

Those people who are exempt from 90-day restrictions should therefore not have their passports stamped.

EU passport – people who have an EU passport should not have it stamped, because they have the right to unlimited stays due to EU freedom of movement.

Dual nationals – people who have passports of both EU and non-EU countries should not be stamped when they are travelling on their EU passport. However, because the passports of dual nationals are not ‘linked’, those travelling on their non-EU passports will be stamped, unless they have other proof of residency.

READ ALSO What are the rules for dual-nationals travelling in France?

French residents – the passports of non-EU citizens who have a residency permit in France (carte de séjour) should not be stamped, because they have the right to stay in France for as long as their permit is valid.

Visa holders – people who have a long-stay visa or a short-stay visitor visa should not be stamped, because they have the right to stay in France for as long as their visa is valid. 

Tourists/visitors – people making short visits to France who do not have a visa should be stamped, with the stamps keeping track of their 90-day allowance. Visitors from nationalities who do not benefit from the 90-day rule (eg Indians) are also stamped.

Travel practicalities

When crossing a French border, you should present your passport along with other documents – visa or carte de séjour – if relevant. Don’t wait for border guards to ask whether you are a resident.

It should be noted that the carte de séjour is not a travel document and cannot be used to cross borders, not even internal Schengen zone borders. The only valid travel documents for entering France are a passport or national ID card. Any other forms of ID – driving licence, residency card etc – cannot be used for travel purposes.

Border problems

While the rules on stamping are simple in theory, many readers of The Local have reported having their passports incorrectly stamped at the border, and this seems to be a particular problem for non-EU nationals who are resident in France.

Travellers are also often given incorrect information by border guards – for example being told that only holders of the post-Brexit Article 50 TUE carte de séjour are exempt from stamping, that all non-EU nationals must have their passports stamped or that only being married to a French national exempts you from stamping.

None of these are correct.

It’s also sometimes the case that people whose passports should be stamped – tourists, visitors and second-home owners who don’t have a visa – do not receive the stamp. For frequent visitors this can be a problem because it looks as though they have had a long stay in France, due to their exit not being recorded.

The system of stamping itself is also a bit haphazard with stamps scattered throughout the passport book in random order, so border guards sometimes make mistakes and miss an entry or exit stamp and therefore think that people have overstayed when they haven’t.

So how much of a problem actually is it if your passport is wrongly stamped?

It’s one thing to know the rules yourself, it’s quite another to have an argument with a border guard, in French, when a long queue is building behind you. Numerous Local readers have reported feeling that they had no choice but to accept a stamp when an implacable guard insisted upon it.

But is this really a problem?

One thing is clear – if you are a resident of France then you have the right to re-enter, and your proof of residency (visa or carte de séjour) takes precedence over any passport stamps. So it’s not a question of being barred from the country – it can, however, be inconvenient as it might lead to delays at the border while your passport record is queried.

Meanwhile people who did not receive correct exit stamps can be incorrectly told that they have over-stayed and even be liable for a fine. 

Will the new EES passport control system improve this?

Theoretically, the EU’s new Entry & Exit System – which does away with the manual stamping of passports – should get rid of these problems.

However, as we have seen, theory and what actually happens on the ground are two different things.

The EES system, due to come into effect later this year, brings in two main changes – it makes passport checks more secure by adding diometric data such as fingerprints and facial scans and it does away with manual stamping of passports and replaces it with scans which automatically calculate how long people have been in France.

You can read full details of how it works HERE. 

So that should eliminate the problems of unclear stamps, stamps being read wrongly or passports not getting the stamps they need.

Residents in France – carte de séjour and visa holders – are not required to complete EES checks and should have a separate system at ports, airports and railway terminals.

However, at present it’s pretty common for border guards to give incorrect information to non-EU residents who are resident in the EU – let’s hope that they are properly briefed before EES is deployed.

Have you had problems with passports being incorrectly stamped? Please share your experiences in the comments section below

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