Obtaining french citizenship

General Discussion
41

That is something I wondered about too. But then I thought is that to keep track of expected inheritances once the person applying becomes subject to Fr tax?

42

I’m thrilled that I actually managed to trace my mother’s roots
 all due to French Officialdom demanding my parents birth certs and marriage certs
 for the citizenship application which I later abandoned some years ago 
 (bad decision as it turned out
 )

But through the UK BMD’s offices
 I finally discovered who her father was
 and another piece of the jigsaw popped neatly into place. :+1:

43

Yes any Cassiùre Judiciaire paperwork which they check out throughly in both countries so if the applicant has a criminal record in his previous country they will know and the same in France. My son has had two children since his application and they have had to be included with official passports and birth certificates etc now plus my marriage certificate and details of his grandparents etc. I think each case is different in regards to paperwork demanded apart from the standard depending on the applicant’s age(s) and what they do for a living here etc.

44

There is the possibility, in the on-line application form at least, of explaining why some information is unobtainable. I was talking to someone the other day about the fact that she hasn’t a clue as to ex-husband’s address so she just explained that. They wanted parents’ current addresses too - I did think of listing the various cemeteries but decided that was a very bad idea :rofl:

45

but Jane, I don’t have any certification, so I have no idea where to start; it seems that there is more than just one route - and of course I want the quickest / cheapest route.

46

This is the link to the information.

NationalitĂ© française : comment justifier de son niveau en français ? | Service-Public.fr.

In reality for you probably two routes, the DELF diploma which lasts for life, or the TCF certificate which lasts 2 years. At the moment you need le le B1, but it will increase to B2 in near future. So in many ways the TCF might be better as it tests all levels and your results will reflect your level. Whereas DELF you have to select a level in advance. Use the buttons on the link to see what’s available in your area.

It might also be worth doing something like this to see what your current level is to work out if you need any preparation

47

In case this is of use to anyone, ordering birth/marriage etc certificates from the GRO in the UK, the usual route, is more than a little problematic. When you order, they nominally wait 5 days before sending you the paperwork. However, their declared dispatch date when they do actually issue the things is very misleading.

Because of previous problems with not receiving things for nigh on a month, I ordered a batch twice at the same time - once to go to a friend in the UK and once to come directly to me in France. The orders were marked as having been dispatched on 3rd February. My friend received her lot 2 weeks after that, reposted them to me and they arrived today. The direct ones haven’t arrived. This says to me that the problem isn’t the post between the UK and France, it’s something around the dispatch process as even with the Royal Mail problems there have been, it doesn’t normally take 2 weeks for a first class letter to arrive.
I would like to suggest the route I will try next time, which is more complicated but shouldn’t be subject to the same delays - order the certificates directly from the regional registry office who issued the original. If anyone does this before I do, I’d love to hear the results!

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48

thanks for this Jane. It is becoming clearer now. I went to the office of ‘Osengo’ (it seems that the Government has outsourced this process) to register and pay my 150€.
I was then given a date for my test of ‘connaisance du français’ (TCF) and I think that it is not so much that I choose whether I want B1 or B2 etc, but rather they will issue me with the competence level they feel appropriate following the test.
The test is in april and I will keep you posted.

49

That is the advantage of the TCF test, it tests all levels so you get what your scores reach. The DELF only tests at one level and if you don’t make that you get nothing!

50

@JaneJones do you have any sources for this? From what I have been told, it will be B2 for everyone. That said, I have been given conflicting information from so many different sources, it’s hard to distill the signal from the noise!

Similarly, I was originally told by someone at OFII to do the DELF since it is valid for life. But yesterday at Alliance Francaise, one of the professors (who is a TCF and DELF examiner) told me that the prefecture ONLY accepts the TCF for nationality applications and that the DELF is not sufficient. So again, more conflicting information.

If you have any official links for this as well, that’d be massively appreciated.

51

OH has had this issue with the DWP. They sent 3 different sets of documents, the first was sent in January. None arrived. They would not send them by email, it had to be by post. In the end, we found out why by chance. The DWP computer based mailing system used had no concept of an address outside of the UK, and so the address didn’t have the country on it, and only has 2nd class UK postage :angry:. There is a department within the DWP that must deals with people living outside the UK, but these documents came from the regular DWP. Sorted now.

52

That’s interesting @hairbear . I asked for an income statement from DWP - one saying it was a pension entitlement for life, not a benefit, and to my surprise I actually got one! It took 2 months to get here


53

OH had a letter from the same DWP department over a year ago which took 3 months to arrive. We dug that one out and someone had hand written ‘France’ on the envelope. It had a UK second class postage on it. That’s how we figured it out.
The DWP overseas department can send stuff international with the correct postage, and the documents were handed to them to process.

54

If you want to go back to original texts you have to pick your way through several texts. So start with the code civil of 1945, and then look at what the new law says. But this is the basics

Titre II, article 20.

Which will apply to naturalisations by dĂ©cret, not by declaration (marriage). I had something that expanded on this difference but can’t now find it. Essentially with marriage you are making a declaration of nationality, as this is a right. You do not seek to become French by asking the immigration minister to give you a decree.

And for your second question it is set out on service public website. What is often overlooked is that DELF is a diploma and TCF-IRN is a certificate. So some don’t recognise that DELF is a french diploma that sanctions one’s level of French.

Vous devez fournir un diplÎme français ou une attestation de réussite à un test linguistique.

Les diplÎmes et attestations suivants sont acceptés :

  • DiplĂŽme national du brevet
  • DiplĂŽme français sanctionnant un niveau au moins Ă©gal au niveau 3 de la nomenclature nationale des niveaux de formation
  • DiplĂŽme attestant un niveau de connaissance de la langue française au moins Ă©quivalent au niveau B1 du CERL
  • Attestation de rĂ©ussite dĂ©matĂ©rialisĂ©e imprimĂ©e de moins de 2 ans du test de connaissance du français (TCF) dĂ©livrĂ© par France Éducation International (France Éducation International a remplacĂ© le Centre international d’études pĂ©dagogiques)
  • Attestation de rĂ©ussite dĂ©matĂ©rialisĂ©e imprimĂ©e de moins de 2 ans du test d’évaluation du français (TEF) de la chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Paris Île-de-France

Trouver un organisme pour passer le test de connaissance du français (TCF)

Trouver un centre agrĂ©Ă© pour passer le test d’évaluation (TEF)

Attention

Les attestations dĂ©livrĂ©es par l’Ofii: Ofii : Office français de l’immigration et de l’intĂ©gration ne sont pas acceptĂ©es (attestations de dispense de formation linguistique, de compĂ©tences linguistiques et de formation civique).

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55

I can’t remember what my diploma said, or where it was from, other than it was apparently valid for 6 months. Does that mean they expect your language ability to decline after that time? This was back in 2016 so no point in searching for it now.

56

There is a recognition that if you achieve a language level, but then don’t use it your ability will decline. But diploma’s don’t have expiry dates, so it must have been a certificate.

57

Oh, so what’s the difference, would it still have been valid for my citizenship application, and, if not, why did I spend a hundred odd quid on it?

58

As with everything in French bureaucracy, as clear as mud!

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59

Yes, while it was still in date.

60

it was a joke then, I winged it in the section which played a cd and then asked questions to be answered on a multiple choice sheet. I lost track and simply punched in anything. The later bit was a one to one but the questions were limited to 1 minute answers. I did better on that.