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Covid: France rewards frontline immigrant workers with citizenship

bbc.com

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Re: Covid: France rewards frontline immigrant workers with citizenship

#141

Post by Fanch22 »

hef19898 wrote: post #118
touisteur wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it's different because of marriage. It's 10 years of presence in France, that you can prove. Through marriage it's shorter, but you get the special 'white marriage' procedure to make sure you're not in it for the citizenship. Prove that you live and have been living together, that you've been a couple for some time... Didn't like this process at all.

Then I have something to look forward to, haven't I? Living abroad, outside of France, may change things again. Maybe next year, but I keep telling this myself for 3 years now. Hopefully kids and house will make that white marriage thing easier!

If you have kids together the verification is a breeze (and will likely be done over the phone).

Re: Covid: France rewards frontline immigrant workers with citizenship

#142

Post by conanbatt »

neither_color wrote: post #22
conanbatt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is in spite of immigration policy, not because of it.

Which policy? The latest H1-B bill which lifts per-country caps passed unanimously in the senate and with a strong majority in the house. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1044 Certainly different people will have different opinions on what the "right" number of immigrants is but this is not an anti-immigrant country.

Immigration cap? Without a cap on H1B the US would have 10 or 50 times the level of incoming immigrants.

Plus H1B is limited to having degrees (or a lot of work experience) in a small subset of occupations.

The US could bring over 1 million doctors in one year if it were legal.

H1B is only one specific case of immigration: generally speaking the developed world allows for unconstrained immigration if you have a job offer. Americans are particularly restricted in hiring foreigners, which is also one reason why it has so much illegal immigration.

Re: Covid: France rewards frontline immigrant workers with citizenship

#143

Post by haram_masala »

oefrha wrote: post #25
bruceb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really true. There have been a few isolated cases of former members of the armed services who were convicted of a felony being deported. I don't agree with that happening either but to say they are regularly deported just isn't true. If you serve in the armed forces and don't commit crimes, and apply for citizenship you will most likely get it. Also the US accepts alot more immigrants than Japan, China, an…

> US accepts alot more immigrants than Japan, China, and many other countries. The overwhelming majority of people in Japan, China, etc. hasve ancestral roots in their respective countries going back thousands of years before written history. They live in “their land”, their ancestors’ land. On the other hand, America as we know it is a country of immigrants, practically every “native” American is an N-th generation…

You still haven’t explained what difference it makes whether the majority of people have ancestral roots or not.

Re: Covid: France rewards frontline immigrant workers with citizenship

#144

Post by kergonath »

pseudo0 wrote: post #29
kergonath wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, this fast track should be the norm. The naturalisation process is insanely long intentionally.

It seems rather lax already, to be honest. France requires five years of residency, the ability to speak French, and a basic understanding of French culture and civics. That really seems like the bare minimum for the state to take on a lifetime, irrevocable responsibility for a prospective immigrant.

That’s the theory. Then you have appointments one year in the future. Of course you have to be there otherwise you have to wait months for another one. You also have to be there early because having an appointment does not necessarily mean that there will be someone for you, it just means that you can queue on that day. You might also have to travel quite a bit because the office to which you have to go is allocated unpredictably.

Then, add all the difficulties an administration can throw at you (you sent an uncertified copy? too bad; the document with the exact title does not exist in your country of origin? Too bad; Records were lost because of a civil war? Too bad; You did not check the box L-430-b on the cf-740 form even though you should have because you were born on a full moon from parents working for a watchamacallit factory? Too bad; etc ad nauseam).

These difficulties depend a lot on where you’re from; it’s quite different for rich Americans than for poor Malians. So yes, it’s generous on paper but the devil is in the implementation details, as with all bureaucracy.

Also, it’s quite expensive if you consider the whole process.

Re: Covid: France rewards frontline immigrant workers with citizenship

#145

Post by kergonath »

hef19898 wrote: post #91
Jacqued wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not five years to citizenship. After five years you get to apply. Then it takes about 4 years of administrative hell (with some traps that can get you back to square one) to get there. No one who is at all familiar with the French immigration system would tell you that it's "lax". It's generally a nightmare to navigate and it feels like it's designed to deter all but the most determined immigrants. Source: perso…

Anecdata, but a Cuban friend of ours has a French wife. Able to apply after 5 years and more or less got his French passport immediately after handing in the necessary documents and passing interviews and language tests. All in the same year he applied. Maybe it's different because of marriage, no idea. When you are not in France, the hardest part is to find someone to administer the necessary language test. Last tim…

Being married to a French citizen makes things much, much easier. You still have to apply to filter out obviously problematic cases (and convenience marriages just for the purpose of getting citizenship) but otherwise it is mostly automatic.

I think it is easier than getting German citizenship (and others: naturalisation in Switzerland is notoriously very difficult), but it’s not necessarily saying much.

Re: Covid: France rewards frontline immigrant workers with citizenship

#146

Post by kergonath »

ronyfadel wrote: post #20
kergonath wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, this fast track should be the norm. The naturalisation process is insanely long intentionally.

It is long for obvious reasons right? One needs to show that they have stayed in France sufficiently long to have had the “valeurs de la République” (values of the Republic) imbued in them, as well as speak a decent level of French and to have been well integrated in society. FWIW the overall wait time to become a French citizen is much less than most other European countries.

It’s really not. That is 5 years (two if you came for a degree), which is the time after which you’re supposed to be acquainted with the language and the culture (which is fair enough). The delays are after that to get appointments and stuff. These are purely a consequence of the bureaucratic process, which is quite arbitrary in its implementation (as an example, depending on your country of origin you might have to go to different offices, which process files at very different speeds).

Re: Covid: France rewards frontline immigrant workers with citizenship

#147

Post by kergonath »

pjc50 wrote: post #97
BossingAround wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the real problem in a lot of EU countries. This, coupled with highly inefficient ways of delivering results, appointment dates/locations, or inefficient locations in general (e.g. you reside in city X yet you have to appear in person in city Y that is 200km away just to submit a form). This can be especially heartbreaking when one has to take a time off just to appear in city Y, spend money on transport, and t…

The inefficiency is deliberate. It's a way of controlling immigration numbers without being seen to do so.

Yes, exactly.

Re: Covid: France rewards frontline immigrant workers with citizenship

#148

Post by kergonath »

raverbashing wrote: post #77
BossingAround wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the real problem in a lot of EU countries. This, coupled with highly inefficient ways of delivering results, appointment dates/locations, or inefficient locations in general (e.g. you reside in city X yet you have to appear in person in city Y that is 200km away just to submit a form). This can be especially heartbreaking when one has to take a time off just to appear in city Y, spend money on transport, and t…

While citizenship is a privilege, not a right, decades, or maybe centuries of bureaucratic procedures pile up and are not reviewed/simplified ending up with situations like that Add the factor that the public service does not have the same kind of incentives (and being a native of the country makes you know about the ways of making things work - foreigners don't know that usually) Granted, not all countries are like…

It is a right for a lot of people. How could it be a democracy if citizenship weren’t a right?

The case where it isn’t is for people not born from French parents or not married to a French citizen (plus a couple of other exceptions). In this case, the criteria for naturalisation are clearly spelled out in the law. It should not be arbitrary.

The current mess is because governments want to limit immigration without touching the law to tighten the criteria, for purely political reasons. The French government actually knows how to run large administrations quite well when there are incentives to do so.

Re: Covid: France rewards frontline immigrant workers with citizenship

#149

Post by qqn »

FooHentai wrote: post #88
DaedPsyker wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France usually gives citizenship for service or sacrifice to France,'Français par le sang versé', French by spilled blood.

IIRC this citizenship pathway is almost uniquely French, and one of the main reasons people sign up to the French Foreign Legion.

"Yes, a foreign legionnaire may apply for French citizenship from three years of service.

"It is usually granted, subject to have a good way to serve and have proven its willingness to integrate the French Nation.

"The legionnaire who does not wish to opt for French nationality retains his foreign nationality and is just as much to stay in France at the end of his contract and once he is in possession of a residence permit.

"Obtaining a residence card is consecutive to obtaining a "certificate of good conduct" issued by the command of the Foreign Legion to each deserving legionnaire leaving active service. Furthermore, the legionnaire wounded in operation may acquire, from right, French nationality (law called "the blood shed")."

https://en.legion-recrute.com/mdl/info_seul.php?id=39&block=...

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