Naturalisation par Decret

[martin]

I am currently compiling dossiers to apply for Naturalisation par Decret (we are British) - me, wife and two school children. I have to wait about another month before we take them in to the Prefecture at Bordeaux

We have lived here over five years, speak the language and generally comply with all the requirements.

It seems impossible to make contact by the telephone, fax or email with the prefecture, so I have written in with a few queries, but it took four weeks to receive a reply - not a very speedy way to get answers!

So has anyone recently been through or are going through the process?  I would like to ask a few more questions. 

Conversely, if anyone is thinking os going for it, I do have limited knowledge and would be glad to share what I have learnt so far.

 

 

[Lost in translation]

My wife and I had intended to emigrate to France this summer but first bereavement and now uncertainty caused by recent publicity about rights to heatlth care and other reforms may delay us moving 'officially'. My wife is relatively fluent in French and has no real ties to England and would like to become a French citizen. We have yet to do the basic research as this is a fairly new option. Any guidance on process and pitfalls would be gratefully received.

[cooperlola]

You will have to have lived here for 5 years before you can apply.  There's a good link somewhere on here (from Twinks, I think?), I'll try to find it.

Edit :  Here it is

http://sos-net.eu.org/etrangers/interne/natio.htm

[martin]

As cooperlola said, you will have to live here for five years and most importantly be able to prove such residency; e.g; affiliation to cpam, declaration as fiscal residents or even an attestation from the mairie.

If you are serious about this, start now to gather and file every certificate of birth and marriage for you, your parents and offspring, even certificates from previous marriages, proof of past employment, criminal records checks; in fact keep everything in a box file, because you will need to produce them for so many bureaucratic processes long before you are eligible for naturalisation.

You say that your wife would like to gain citizenship - it would be better if you would too as doing it as a couple or family is more likely to be successful. The authorities quite rightly want to know why you want nationality, it's not good enough to say simply that you would like it. They may well question the commitment if just one of a couple goes for it.  In your case as a couple or family living here (?) your reasons would be that France is your new and permanent home and you want to establish yourselves, you want to vote and you want to integrate.

In our case, we have two school children who have been brought up here and will no doubt live and work here, marry here and have children here.

We are keeping on top of our applications, but although not difficult it is very time-consuming and fraught with red tape.

 

 

[tournesol]

Hello

I realise this was posted sometime ago but wondered if you had a carte de sejour as it was stated as being a requirement for applicants. We have never required one having moved here in Jan 2004 .

 Do you still have to apply for the carte de sejour purely  for the purpose of applying for french nationalisation?

We will be looking to apply next year so our children gain French national status automatically through us. Our son wants to become a gendarme and we know he must complete the national service day and be a french national in order to apply when he is 18. So we are planning ahead  knowing  the process can take a while - doing what we can to help him and our other children be able to follow their chosen careers without the potential hassles/headaches of additional french paperwork. They will face enough of that  without this! lol

Any information from those that have gone through / or are currently going the process appreciated.

Natalie

[Nick Trollope]

[quote user="tournesol"]

We will be looking to apply next year so our children gain French national status automatically through us.

[/quote]

Surely your Son could apply for citizenship in his own right - as he grew up here and (when he has) has lived here for 5 years, the process will be simpler (for him)?

[tournesol]

Hello

If we have understood correctly  he cannot apply in his own right until he is 18 years old.