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FRENCH CITIZENSHIP

Why might France refuse your citizenship application?

Applying for French citizenship is a stressful and time-consuming process, but could you really be refused for your political views or if you're overheard complaining about France? We sort the fact from the fiction.

Why might France refuse your citizenship application?
A woman celebrates becomes a French citizen at a ceremony attended by French President Emmanuel Macron. (Photo by Michel Euler / POOL / AFP)

It’s not uncommon for people going through the citizenship process to refuse to complain about France ‘in case they hear me’ – but they’re usually joking when they say it.

Recently, however a France-based American influencer shared a video on social media platform TikTok in which she said she could not make any public statement regarding her personal feelings about the situation in Israel and Palestine.

The reason, she said, was not to jeopardise her ongoing application for French citizenship. “I can’t say a peep about it. I cannot risk deportation,” she told her 783,000 followers.

READ ALSO Factcheck: Do foreigners in France really risk deportation for holding pro-Palestine views?

No-one in government or any position of authority in France has said this, so we’re not sure what Rollins is referring to in her video.

Common reasons for refusal

The usual reasons for refusal a citizenship application are simply not fitting the criteria – maybe insufficient time spent living in France (the usual minimum is five years), not having been married for four years if you’re applying through marriage or insufficient financial resources.

You can also be refused on the basis of your language skills – you need to prove you have a reasonable standard of French. 

READ ALSO QUIZ: Could you pass the French citizenship interview?

A criminal record could also stop your application in its tracks – but driving licence points usually won’t count against you.

There’s a lot of paperwork involved in applying for French citizenship and – as anyone who has dealt with the country’s red tape before knows – the wheels of bureaucracy grind slowly. The average time to process a citizenship application is between 18 months and two years, but in some areas it can take longer.

The interview

If you satisfy all the criteria and your dossier is complete, you will then move on to the next step; the interview.

Unlike some countries France doesn’t have a citizenship test where you have to name rivers or identify historical figures.

The test for whether you are ‘integrated’ enough comes in the form of an in-person interview at your local préfecture. You will likely be grilled on French history, geography, politics and culture and you have to prove that you are both knowledgeable about France and you appreciate the country’s values and truly want to become French.

And it’s at the interview stage that the more bizarre reasons for refusal crop up.

Earlier this summer, a 25-year-old Albanian man, who had lived in France since he was 14 and finished school here, said he would appeal after his application for French citizenship was refused because he did not know who Edith Cresson or Jules Ferry were. (They are; France’s first female prime minister in 1991 and the education minister who oversaw the transition to free and secular public schooling in the 1880s). 

It was reported in 2019 that a nurse was denied French citizenship because she had been putting in too many hours at work.

The Val-de-Marne préfecture denied the application for citizenship on the grounds that the woman – whose country of origin was not revealed in reports at the time – was “failing to comply with the law” around working hours.

She apparently had three jobs and clocked up 59 hours of work a week and an average of 271 hours a month, considered “a violation of working regulations in France”.

And, in 2016, an Algerian woman was refused citizenship because she refused to shake hands with the secretary-general of the prefecture and another local official at the ceremony celebrating her successful application for citizenship.

The woman told the Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest administrative court, that her actions were “motivated by her religious convictions”.

We should point out, however, that these types of refusals are unusual – which is why they make the news. 

Getting French citizenship is far from an easy process – in total around 30 percent of applications are turned down, but according to the interior ministry, the majority of these are on financial, eligibility or language grounds.

Exceptional service

One way of getting French citizenship is to provide a ‘service’ to France. Some 12,000 foreign workers whose jobs put them on the front line during the Covid pandemic were given citizenship under a special scheme that fast-tracked their applications.

“Front-line workers responded to the call of the nation, so it is right that the nation takes a step towards them,” said then-Citizenship minister Marlene Schiappa, at the time.

“I welcome our new compatriots to French nationality and thank them in the name of the Republic, while the country also extends its thanks to them.”

And, in 2018, a young Malian immigrant scaled the facade of a building in Paris to save a toddler’s life. He met the president and was made a French citizen for his heroism, and joined the volunteer fire service.

READ ALSO Paris: Who is ‘le spiderman’ – the Malian migrant who saved a toddler’s life?

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FRENCH CITIZENSHIP

Are you entitled to French citizenship if you are married to a French person?

It's often said that citizenship by marriage is a 'right' - although in fact things are a little more complicated than that. Here's a look at how to acquire French nationality through marriage.

Are you entitled to French citizenship if you are married to a French person?

When applying for French citizenship there are two paths – par décret (by decree) or par déclaration (by declaration), and which one you follow depends on your personal circumstances.

Décret

Most people applying par décret will be applying through residency – once you have lived in France for five years (or two years in certain circumstances) you can apply to become French. In order to do this you will need to gather a massive file of paperwork and go through a lengthy application process which includes an interview grilling you on all aspects of life in France.

In 2021, of the 130,400 people who became French, 58 percent of them applied par décret.

As a general rule, applying by décret is usually a tougher and longer process (although processing times vary on a local level) and – crucially – the final decision is in the hands of the local préfecture. Your application can be rejected and plenty are; the most common reasons are lack of integration. This might be due to poor language skills or lack of knowledge about France and its values; not having a stable income in France or not having a ‘stable and regular presence’ in the country – this most often applies to people who have a spouse or minor children living in another country.

Déclaration

The second route is through family connections – in 2021, 40 percent of successful applications were through this route. The most common was parents applying on behalf of their children who have been born in France at 25 percent, while 13 percent of successful applications were through marriage.

READ ALSO How to request French nationality for your child

Applying par déclaration is generally easier (although everything is relative) and the crucial point is that citizenship through this path is a ‘right’.

However, that doesn’t mean that it is just handed out automatically – there are a number of conditions that you must fulfil, and if you either don’t fit the criteria or do not provide sufficient proof that you fit the criteria you can and will be rejected.

Choose

It’s not unusual for people to fit both criteria – for example you’re married to a French person and you have also lived in France for more than five years.

In this case, it’s your choice how you apply – the marriage route is generally thought of as a quicker and simpler process, but set against that if your spouse divorces you or dies while you are still going through the process then your application may be no longer valid.

If you get divorced within a year of getting French citizenship then it’s also possible (although rare) for your citizenship to be annulled.

Marriage conditions

Four years – you need to have been married for four years to a French national. So if you have only just got married then you will need to wait. Likewise if you have been married for a long time but your spouse has recently become French, then you will need to wait four years from the date of their naturalisation.

Living in France – unlike the décret option, you do not need to be living in France to apply for citizenship through this route. However, where you live does make a difference – if you can show proof of residence in France for at least three years, you can apply after four years of marriage.

However, if you have not lived in France for at least three years, the qualifying period may be raised to five years of marriage, unless your spouse was inscribed on the Registre des Français établis hors de France (list of French people living overseas) during your time out of France.

Live together – you must, however, be living with your French spouse. You will need to demonstrate a ‘practical and emotional communal life’ – this is basically to weed out fake marriages for passport purposes. You will need to demonstrate that you know some basic things about your spouse (birthdays, childhood, favourite films etc) and if you’re in France you may also get a home visit by the local gendarmes to check that you really do live together as a couple.

Speak French – you must also speak French to a reasonable level. The level currently required is B1 on the international CERL/DELF scale which is described as ‘intermediate’. It’s possible that this may change in the future.

You can test yourself against the scale HERE.

What is needed to apply 

It’s not enough merely fulfilling these criteria, you also need to provide the appropriate evidence, in the format requested. 

So for example you will need to supply proof of ID and address plus birth certificates for yourself and your spouse, and your marriage certificate – if you were married outside France you will require a re-issued certificate that is less than three months old, and you will also need to get any certificates that are not in French translated. The translations must be done by a certified translator.

You will also need a certificate showing that your French is at least B1 level, this must be from an approved course or diploma, unless you studied at a French university. There is an exemption that is possible on health grounds, although the age-related exemption has now been scrapped.

Please note that this is not a complete list of documents – you can obtain a personalised list here.

How to apply 

One important thing for people applying by marriage to note is that the new online citizenship portal can at present only be used by people applying par déclaration.

For the moment, those applying through marriage apply via their local préfecture, or through the French consulate if they live outside France. It seems likely that applications may move to the online portal in the future, but at the time of writing people applying through marriage cannot use it.

Once you have put together your dossier of documents and submitted the application, the next stage is an in-person interview – in French – where you will be tested on your knowledge of France and French values. People applying through marriage often report a few ‘Mr and Mrs’ style questions, testing how well you know your spouse (in order to check that this a real marriage).

The experience of the interview varies quite widely – some people get a few cursory questions, others get a proper grilling. It’s not just a formality either – of the people whose applications through marriage are rejected, a significant percentage are for ‘insufficient assimilation’, which can be either poor language skills or insufficient knowledge of France.

If you’re living in France you may also get the local gendarmes paying you a visit, again to check that you are truly cohabiting. Not everyone gets this, and it seems to be more common in rural areas, but it’s a distinct possibility.

If you satisfy all of the above criteria then congratulations, you become French.

The entire process is quite a lengthy one – the general rule is to allow around 18 months for your application, although there are wide regional variations and applications done through French consulates are usually slightly quicker.

READ ALSO How long does a French citizenship application take?

So in short, citizenship through marriage is a right if – and this is quite a big if – you meet all the criteria and provide the proof required.

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