Oh that is a shame. It must be hard not to take it personally and feel rejected. It’s far too early to know if appeals are working, but if you have the stamina a hierarchical appeal might be worth it. If you’re registered with the MDHP that could be important as completely illegal to reject people on grounds of handicap. So if that’s the reason for the income issue they might have to take into greater account.
@KarenLot” I can imagine that if you went back to the UK”
Bring rejected fir citizenship has no effect on one’s rights of residence!
Not implying that at all, jj. Just meaning that if aomeone has made their life here to the point of wanting nationality then for many going back would feel like going to a foreign country. I have at least one country on that list and it’s nothing to do with any visa or nationality elsewhere..
This may not be a comfort to those applying but our youngest daughter is also struggling with her citizenship application. She has lived in France for 20 years, been through the education system through to Uni, 100% of her income is French, works as a pharmacist, a part time pompier, in a civil partnership with a French man (who is a gendarme) and has just had her first child who is obviously French.
Her problem is that applications are taking so long to be processed that the documents she sent with her application are deemed to be out of date so are rejected meaning she has to start again, it takes time and no little cost to have her birth certificate etc to be translated and certified with the risk that this could keep happening over and over again.
Citizenship approvals have fallen over the last three years due to the strict enforcement of the rules and I can’t seeing this changing anytime soon.
Tim, tell your daughter to have a word with the traducteur assermenté. I’m a translator myself at an international org and although I’m not assermenté, I know quite a few in our city. While there’s always an element of new money for old rope in translation work of this kind, I’ve never come across a traducteur assermenté cheeky enough to charge the full whack for something they’ve already translated and that just requires a new certification date.
Happened to my son in same circumstances -full French education and qualifications, fonctionnaire with 100% French income, French civil partner, two children and had been here 27 years at the time of application which took just over four years to be granted this year and they didn’t even tell him, just sent him a voting card for the elections this spring so he had to contact his Marie who confirmed his dual nationality was valid.
By way of international comparison, a friend’s daughter has just had her application to become a Belgian citizen rejected. She is a dual Australian/Brit who has lived full time in Brussels since her early twenties - and she’s now in her early sixties. Although not entirely clear, it seems the reason for rejection is that, whilst now retired, she’s worked for the European Commission for approximately 35 years, and that didn’t count towards living in Belgium!
She’s seemingly relaxed as she has the equivalent of a Withdrawal Agreement type status as a fall back, but is obviously a bit disappointed, both at the time and costs incurred, and also that she doesn’t consider herself a Brit (or Aussie) but regards herself as a Belgian.
If she was born in France then surely no translation etc needed, and it is only French documents that must be less than three months as these are “live” certificates. So if born in UK there is no time limit on the birth certificate and the Agent is wrong to ask for new ones.
This happens regularly but once the situation is explained I’ve never heard of people having problems with older UK documents,
We used to have this issue in France - ie I can remember when I first started work at an international organisation here it was generally said that our years of employment in France didn’t count towards citizenship. But something must have shifted because all my British colleagues who wanted French citizenship after Brexit have managed to get it. And they’re all either serving or retired fonctionnaires internationaux. As long as they can show they’ve been doing tax returns there’s been no problem. Even if there was no tax to pay.
However Belgian friends, residents for generations in Brussels, tell me how unpopular Eurocrats are with Belgian citizens, especially those living in Brussels. They don’t pay Belgian tax or social security on their salaries (albeit they do pay @12-15% of salary to EU in lieu of taxes and social security), aren’t in the Belgian state pension scheme, and have had, (or may still have) access both to special duty free shops, and favourable arrangements for duties on imported cars etc. A common view, apparently, is that those seeking favours from Belgium are trying to have their cake (by not being in Belgium for taxes etc) and eating it (wanting Belgian citizenship).
Thanks Jane. Yes it is hard, even though totally impersonal. It felt supportive to hear from you so quickly this morning.
What is the MDHP please?
They specified the not having french revenue enough to sustain myself as the reason.
As I wrote my interviewer warned me this would happen and told me to appeal.
The interviewer who seemed very sympathetic to me asked if I had any French recognition of my ‘invalidite’.
Perhaps a route is to see if I can get also registered in France as having an ‘Invalidite’ - This might raise my status!
I haven’t explored yet the difference between the types of appeal - what is it about a hierarchical appeal that makes it the one i should try? If you have time to explain .
Hi Len, I wonder if you have received your response by now? I hope so and that you were accpeted. I m reposting this as you asked for others’ experiences and may not have seen me posting right at the bottom of this long long thread yesterday :-I’ve just been refused on the same grounds. Depressing after all the effort and 3 years. I am deeply ’ integrated’ - the agent said I’m clearly an excellent candidate and would certainly have been accepted before this decree by Bruno R. I took testimonies from people in 6 different contexts to demonstrate my involvement in associations etc. I own my house, its my only home. Been here 19 years etc. However my low income is mainly from a UK benefit due to long term health issue. Agent told me I should appeal as the decree is being challenged as illogical and illegal. That an appeal would cause my application to be looked at in detail and not just skimmed and rejected on the basis of this recent decree. I live in Herault - same as the quoted pensioner at the beginning of this post. Montpellier known to be hard line…
Interview was in september. Reply today. Think thats all the info I can give.
It’s the maison departmental des personnes handicapées- and what your interviewer meant by having recognition of your invalidity. You would need your doctor’s support - process below.
Your rejection letter should give details of how to appeal. The first stage (hierarchic) is basically just a letter with any additional information you think appropriate and doesn’t need a lawyer. So nothing to loose by doing this, but you have limited time to submit.
The second stage needs a lawyer, so is a money pit and to my mind not worth it as the probability of success is not huge. Unless of course someone sets up a class action.
Good luck, but either way don’t let it affect you too much.
Same for me with regard to Germany. I was “in service to the crown”, so “resident, but not really resident”, despite living there for 4 years. The upside at the time was that I didn’t have to register with the local police nor have to apply for an Aufenthaltserlaubnis - I also had a limited form of service-linked immunity, just not full diplomatic immunity.
It doesn’t do you many favours as the UK has a policy of not using it. The only benefit in France was that they didn’t bother to even send speeding tickets to those on dip plates.
One chap in my team (Brit Emb Paris) had the works van on dip plates toed away & the fine came to my desk. I bought a decent bottle of Scotch from the com to raffle off to pay the fine, so not to impact his salary.
Never had a speeding fine on dip plates even though one morning on the A86 3 of us were flashed. Head of transport at the time said don’t worry it’s reciprocal, the UK doesn’t fine the French for speeding on dip plates.
Just in on my hot grauniad newsfeed, George Clooney, et all, has been given citizenship, what’s his source of income I have to ask? Or just never mind the source, just measure the size? I am of course not against anyone being given citizenship, it’s just after months of reading the posts here, and feeling the angst of everyone affected, the decision raises some moral coil in me. Perhaps some affected by the edict and untreated by such benevolence might wish to click the ‘more on this story’ tab in the paper…
I do understand that money buys, it’s just I wish this money would buy the more immediate removal of the Retailleau edict. (Amal is into human rights isn’t she?)