Which nationality?!

[overmonnow]

Hello

My husband and I are British nationals permanently resident in France. 

Our first baby is due in a month and we have to go back to the UK in January.  Do we need to get a British or French passport?  And what will her legal nationality be?!

We've been getting conflicting answers to this for some time now (from neighbours, both English & French) but it would be great to have the discussion finally clarified!

Many thanks in advance, Emma-Jane

[Mistral]

Your baby will be british but with the right to french nationality at the age of 18 (or from 13 if you ask in advance) as long as she has lived in france for the 5 years before the application.

The law keeps changing, here's the most recent version (in french) http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/particuliers/F295.xhtml?&n=Etrangers%20en%20France&l=N8&n=Etrangers%20:%20nationalit%C3%A9%20fran%C3%A7aise&l=N111

As to "legal nationality" My children have both. (French father) They are fully french here, fully british in the UK and both elsewhere.

[andyh4]

Your baby will be British - but only if you or your husband were born in Britain (which is not necessarily the case just because  you yourselves are British).  If neither of you were then your baby cannot claim British citizenship under current rules.

 

Personally I think this is a ruling that will have to change - especially in the context of the EU and freedom of movement, but I guess it will be the next generation that will test this through the European courts.  In principle this could actually lead to people being stateless.

[Hegs]

First of all, congratulations and good luck!

Assuming you are both British - you get a French birth certificate from the Mairie where baby is born within (?9) days of the birth. The hospital will give you the stamped form you need.

Then you get a British birth certificate from the British embassy in Paris . First you need to email the local consulate (mine was in Marseille) to send you the form - do this now. You send the form back to Paris with the French birth certificate and proof of your "britishness". The key phrase you need is "by descent" as the justificative. This establishes baby's right to UK citizenship/subjectship or whatever.

Then you can use this to get her a passport using the passport application forms on the website. You will need someone "official" to countersign the photo who has known *you* for 2 years.

In principle you can get the birth certificate and passport in one step, in practise the instructions on the website are confusing and contradictory so we did it in two.

This took a couple of months for our little bundle of joy and probably cost EUR 150!

[overmonnow]

We are both British born so that's not an issue.  I and my husband personally don't mind either way but the grandparents are making a big hoo-ha out of the whole thing, being terribly patriotic and all that, so I thought I'd find out the answer rather than continue to wind them up...  So many thanks for clearing things up for us! 

I guess I just have to try and sort out a British passport for her from over here...  That'll be fun no doubt!!  will start investigating THAT this afternoon...

Emma-Jane

ps. thank you also for the document links - my French is not up to scratch but my husband is bi-lingual so will have a look through them tonight...

[Iceni]

Whose baby is it , Pebbles ? The decision is for the PARENTS to make.

John

not

[andyh4]

Sorry John I know what you mean but it is not quite true.

 

If the decision is that the baby should be British then all well and good.

If the decision is that the baby should be French, the French government have decided that, that cannot happen until the 13th birthday at the earliest.

So if for some reason there is a decision that under no circumstances should/can the baby be British.  Then he/she is stateless until their 13th birthday.

[Mistral]

So if for some reason there is a decision that under no circumstances should/can the baby be British.  Then he/she is stateless until their 13th birthday.

From what I've read, france will give french nationality to a child born in france to foreign parents if, for some reason, it can't have another nationality

http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/particuliers/F3084.xhtml?&n=Etrangers%20en%20France&l=N8&n=Etrangers%20:%20nationalit%C3%A9%20fran%C3%A7aise&l=N111

Also re; consular birth certs. I was told (by the consulate in marseilles) that they were unnecessary, you still need the french birth cert. The woman I spoke to had never even got one for her own son. She said only to bother if I was planning to go back to the UK which was a relief seeing the price. of course this may have been advice for children with both nationalities from birth.

 

[Busy Bee]

Our baby was born in France just one year ago and the most immediate difficulty was that we had not decided on a name before birth.  It is compulsory to register the birth within 3 days, baby was born at 1530 and at 0910 the next morning the local Mairie (at the hospital) was on the phone to me in my bed, demanding to know why they had a baby to register with no  name.  They needed a name NOW.  I eventually managed to explain that dad was at work, but they insisted a decision had to be made that day and they would telephone again the following day - and they did.  So prepare a selection of names in advance.

As regards British birth certificate and passport - what a rip off.  We had to get a passport to travel shortly after birth - there is no compulsion to have a British birth certificate, but you seem to need one to get the British passport.  We also decided for the sake of our baby, it was better to register the birth in the UK now, than for her to have to struggle to prove British nationality at some future date, if that was what she wanted.  The annoying thing is, you pay to register the birth, you have to pay extra for a certificate and then again for the passport - 200 euros in all.  In France the registration and certificate is free (although only valid for 3 months from date of issue) as was all the marriage ceremony and certificates (including livret de famile)

Hopefully, we have done everything our daughter will need, to have the best of both worlds when she is old enough to choose whichever nationality she feels she is.

[overmonnow]

Thanks for that TracyK - it seems a real faff but we're going to have to do it so that she can come with us back to the UK in January!! But like you say, if she wants British nationality at some point in the future, then we'll have paved the way...

We already have a name sorted so no worries about that...  We've been told we have to go to the Mairie to register the birth rather than them coming to us, but luckily I won't need to get out of bed as apaprently, because we're married, my husband is deemed capable of doing it on his own...

One thing I don't understand - if the French birth certificate is only valid for 3 months, why do they issue it in the first place?!  What use can it possibly serve?  Does one need to keep on renewing it or do you just forget about it after the first one?!

Emma-Jane

[naps]

I agree it's expensive at approx 200 euro's, but if we had given birth in the UK we too would be in the same position as the French people here, being able to register the birth and get a certificate for next to nothing.  We move around though, so I wanted the security of our children being registered through the British Embassy in their country of birth - to avoid possible problems at a later date.

The high costs are a very small price to pay for the bonuses of living here in France though.

[Tourangelle]

The thing about birth certificates here, is that what we are calling a birth certificate, l'extrait de naissance, isn't really a certificate, it is just a piece of paper that confirms what is on the register. Instead of birth certificates, while the child is a minor, the parents will be asked for the livret de famille. In fact there seem to be very few occasions when l'extrait de naissance is required. When my husband has had to ask for one in the past, it is just a scrappy piece of paper, about 2 inches long!

In terms of cost, can parents register their child whilst visiting the UK, to get a birth certificate, if they already have a passport? I seem to remember being told some years ago this was possible. OF course it is expensive to do it in France, because we pay for consular service, whereas it is assumed people in the UK pay for these things through their taxes, however I think having a new baby is expensive enough, so it would be good if there were a way around it. Incidentally what I do know is that if you want a UK birth certificate, you don't have to have it when they are born, you can get it for them at any time up to the age of 18.

[overmonnow]

The problem is, being British nationals, we are not entitled to a livret de famille... So would therefore need some form of permanent proof of birth etc.  Hence getting the British birth certificate.  Not only that, but we have to register the baby with the UK as well as France otherwise we would not be able to bring the baby into the UK - one can't get a British passport without a British birth certificate...  And we have to go to the UK 3 months after the birth for work purposes...  So in answer to your question, no, you can't register the birth when visiting the UK in order to save money as the baby wouldn't be allowed in in the first place!  They've changed it these days so that babies/minors have their own passports and cannot travel under their parents'...

[naps]

 

I can see your point, but I think the previous comment regarding registering the baby in the UK was referring to one of the parents doing it while in the UK.  Obviously if you all have to go over in 3 months time, and neither you or your partner are considering a trip alone prior to this, then the only option will be to go through the British Embassy.

Good luck.

[Tourangelle]

You really are a captive market then. It seems rather unfair, because I know you can get a British passport for your child without a British birth certificate when one of the parents is French, because I signed the papers/photo for a friend of mine who was in exactly that situation, and the passport duly arrived.

[Richardbk]

[quote]The problem is, being British nationals, we are not entitled to a livret de famille... So would therefore need some form of permanent proof of birth etc. Hence getting the British birth certificate. ...[/quote]

You do not need an embassy issued birth certificate to get a UK passport. All you need to provide is your own birth+marriage(if applicable) certifcate and the baby's French birth certificate(certified registry entry copy). The embassy issued one has no real value as such other than it can be used to speed up admin for for some UK administration stuff (i.e it does not need to be translated)

regs

 

Richard