10 ms·

Covid: France rewards frontline immigrant workers with citizenship

125 points by williamsharris 6y ago

bawolff 6y ago
Service garuntees citizenship! Would you like to know more? Jokes aside, seems reasonable enough to grant citizenship for those who have performed exceptional civic duty.
- kergonath 6y ago
  To be fair, this fast track should be the norm. The naturalisation process is insanely long intentionally.
  - ronyfadel 6y ago
    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.
    - yodsanklai 6y ago
      Once you are eligible for citizenship (which can take a long time) You must 1. take an appointment to have your document checked (waiting time 1 year) 2. take an appointment to submit the actual application (1 year) 3. wait for the result, 1 1/2 year. So by the time you are eligible, it can take 3-4 years before you know the outcome of your application. These 3-4 years don't serve any obvious purpose that I can think of.
      - BossingAround 6y ago
        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 then find out that the only person that can accept the application has not arrived to the office, and so the whole trip was for nothing (personal experience). Countries seem to have a hard time explaining spending money on efficient dealing with immigration. The whole immigration process is highly stressful even in the EU; I can't imagine how stressful it is in the US, which treats immigrants quite poorly (in my humble opinion).
        raverbashing 6y ago
        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 that. And while people might complain about German bureaucracy, they at least make an effort to do things by the book (meaning: if your appointment says a certain time, you'll be seen at that time) And American bureaucracy also has its quirks and complications when seen from outside.
        kergonath 6y ago
        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.
        pjc50 6y ago
        The inefficiency is deliberate. It's a way of controlling immigration numbers without being seen to do so.
        kergonath 6y ago
        Yes, exactly.
      - ronyfadel 6y ago
        I did the procedure in arguably the préfecture under the most pressure (Paris), and from the day I applied, it took 9 months to get the interview and 6 months to get the citizenship. That was it, less than 1.5 years in total. It took roughly the same time for almost everyone that I know that applied. The only cases that I know of that took longer were people with "exotic" statuses, e.g. people who didn't live full time in France and owned businesses in different countries that they had to visit often to physically tend to.
        yodsanklai 6y ago
        When was it? A few years ago, they added a new requirement that you don't apply directly to the "prefecture" but you have to go through an additional step which takes about a year. My gf is applying for citizenship at the moment, I've described the timeline for her situation. It's been now more than 3 years since she started her application, including 14 months waiting for their decision. And she'd been living in France for more than 10 years before that and graduated from a French university. It probably would have been easier to just get married... BTW, congratulations for your citizenship. I'm glad it was efficient for you.
        ronyfadel 6y ago
        It was in late 2017, and done in 2019.
    - kergonath 6y ago
      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).
  - pseudo0 6y ago
    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.
    - ucha 6y ago
      It's simpler than that in some cases, only 2 years of residency are needed if you're going to uni there.
    - Jacqued 6y ago
      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: personal experience with friends and my so.
      - hef19898 6y ago
        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 time I checked there were two institutes in Germany with the proper certification, one in Frankfurt and one in Berlin. Then Covid hit I didn't check again. Paperwork seems to be a pain in the ass, so. That being said, it seems easier than getting German citizenship.
        touisteur 6y ago
        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.
  - fakedang 6y ago
    How short should it be? 6 months? 3 months? Some comments from the pro-immigrant side astound me... France has one of the most generous immigration policies imo. Citizenship in 5 years can easily be obtained by an highly-educated and skilled immigrant. They don't demand an exceptional knowledge of French or French customs and values. Source:- considered it a few years back, decided against it
- atoav 6y ago
  As someone who has some (immigrant) friends which try/tried to get a foothold in Germany usually the opposite is the norm: You can do everything by the book, be the perfect citizen and in the and you are thanked by daily racism and a bureaucratic maze. To have the strength to stay a good person through all of that is a big achievement. This is why I think showing as a society doing things the right way counts. This is the foundation of the unwritten societal contract: if you go by the rules everything will turn out well for you. If you break the rules, act egoistic etc, you might end up in a bad place. This is why stuff like coruption, worker exploitation, tax evasion etc is worse than just stealing the people's money — it is also undermining the trust into that unwritten societal contract. This contract is of course fiction Which means that believing into it is either optimistic or naive depending on your country. But if it breaks down thing will only get much worse
  - eastendguy 6y ago
    I am curious what kind of problem had or have your friends? Usually it is quite straightforward to get citizenship in Germany. Have a job for 7 years and no criminal record, and you can apply. Source: The (formerly) foreign colleagues I know had no problem with the process.
    - SlateBlate 6y ago
      I studied in Germany and then worked there for four years. They counted my years of study toward citizenship which was awesome. This depends on which region you were in though, some regions only counted 7 years after you started working full time. This was years ago, so things may have changed now.
  - synecdoche 6y ago
    A glass is seen as either half full or half empty. All that can be perceived as racist is not necessarily so. There could be a number of reasons for unpleasant outcomes, none more likely than the other.
    - gentaro 6y ago
- hef19898 6y ago
  France always had a way to citizenship called, I paraphrase here, "citizenship by blood spoiled". Quite often used in case of members of the foreign legion. It basically says, that when you get hurt or wounded while serving the French Republic you are eligible to become a French citizen. Fair enough, if you ask me.
jollofricepeas 6y ago
The US could learn from this but is far too anti-immigrant to do the same. Americans accept immigrants into their Armed Forces but regularly deport them even after they’ve served and been in combat.
- mi_lk 6y ago
  > regularly deport them for what reasons?
  - aksss 6y ago
    Crime will do it
  - gnopgnip 6y ago
    In many countries work visas only last for a limited number of years, if you don't get married, you need to leave or you will be deported.
- markdown 6y ago
  > Americans accept immigrants into their Armed Forces but regularly deport them even after they’ve served and been in combat. The United Kingdom as well: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/05/where-is-the-fairness-fijis-british-army-veterans-fight-for-a-life-in-uk https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/05/where-is-the-f...
  - koreanguy 6y ago
    unfortunately, sadly i think many of them should have been given right of stay in the country, if they served the nation. that is a extremely heavy deadly job. returning them back home would be unwise .
- ulfw 6y ago
  Speaking of which... how will Covid vaccinations for the general public happen in America? Do you have to show ID? Passport? Proof citizenship? What about undocumented immigrants? They're human beings and can infect everyone else too. Has anyone thought of them?
HuwytNashi_006 6y ago
So if you're an indigenous Frenchman you're automatically entitled, but Africans must literally risk their lives before being eligible? And people are celebrating this... Why should ethnically French have a greater right to France than newcomers? It may have been their grandfather's homeland but it must not be their grandson's if we're ever going to progress. We're better than that now.
- afroboy 6y ago
  France did that during WW1 and WW2 they fought that war mostly with North Africans specially Algerians and rewarded them with genocides.
  - Leherenn 6y ago
    There's a lot to be said about France and other European powers treatment of their colonial troops, but North Africa certainly wasn't the main provider of soldiers. From Wikipedia: "At the end of the war on November 11, 1918, the French had called up 8,817,000 men, including 900,000 colonial troops.". Note that this includes all colonies as well as "French troops" stationed in the colonies (apparently half that number). Another Wikipedia article cites around 270'000 people from Northern Africa among them 180'000 soldiers.
  - throwaway744678 6y ago
    > rewarded them with genocides That is a strong claim. Any evidence to back it up?
    - afroboy 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9tif_and_Guelma_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9tif_and_Guelma_massacre
- rubycon22 6y ago
  This is like asking why ethnically African people have a greater right to Africa than non-African people. Sounds dumb doesn't it?
thefz 6y ago
Reminds me of that case, in France too, in which a Malian immigrant has been offered citizenship and a job as a firefighter after he risked his life climbing a building to save a kid: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-hero/france-offers-citizenship-to-malian-immigrant-who-scaled-building-to-save-child-idUSKCN1IS0UF https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-hero/france-offers...
- kyawzazaw 6y ago
  Also mentioned in the linked artcile
- captn3m0 6y ago
  Also https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-train-terror-attack-citizenship-20190131-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-train-terror-attac... >Three California men have been granted French citizenship for their role in thwarting a terror attack on a French train in 2015.
- DaedPsyker 6y ago
  France usually gives citizenship for service or sacrifice to France,'Français par le sang versé', French by spilled blood.
  - FooHentai 6y ago
    IIRC this citizenship pathway is almost uniquely French, and one of the main reasons people sign up to the French Foreign Legion.
    - justnotworthit 6y ago
      France is stereotyped as particularly culturally jingoistic. I wonder why France uniquely (among large countries?) has these offers of citizenship.
    - qqn 6y ago
      "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=26&titre=Can-a-foreign-legionnaire-become-French https://en.legion-recrute.com/mdl/info_seul.php?id=39&block=...
omnibrain 6y ago
And in Germany ITS nurses that came to Germany as toddlers get threatened with deportation amidst the pandemic...
koreanguy 6y ago
oh dear, now large influx of immigrants will see this as a deal done, more would be put at risk. not only that but coronavirus reaching france from the outside is now even worse with this reward. there is legal framework to resettle in all the European western nations. every illegal spends above 5k to reach the EU on dodgy paths. terrible news. those front line workers should be deported after their visa expires.
bmsleight_ 6y ago
As a person that leans towards socialism. I want to understand from someone who leans towards capitalism, the reluctance with immigration. We have people who will travel large distances for a potential benefit (i.e risk takers), who like the articles mentioned, are happy to work hard. This is the ideal characteristics of an entrepreneur or early employee or a start-up. More labour, lowers labour costs. What is the reluctance with immigration ?
- bruceb 6y ago
  "lowers labour costs" So you want to drive down wages for working people? Better to take highly educated people who are going to compete against other highly educated people, not people who will compete against Americans who are less educated and who are not financially well off.
- the-dude 6y ago
  If you are so curious, maybe you should do some more research. I suggest visiting some suburbs of Paris, or Stockholm. Furthermore, we are already in the EU, which is a trade-block only, favoring capitalists ( and driving down labor costs ). edit: If you want hard numbers, look up the labor participation for NL.
  - tuwtuwtuwtuw 6y ago
    I have visited suburbs of Paris and Stockholm several times since I have relatives who have lived there. What is your point?
- tomp 6y ago
  There needs to be a balance. Unlimited immigration is unsustainable (Europe can’t support 3bn people), so there have to be some limits. Also, I value my culture (not in the “food & language” sense, but in “enlightenment values” sense), and have no interest in admitting more people who don’t value or respect this culture. Finally, you need to correctly read the situation. Most pro-immigration people support it to lower labour costs. They will of course deny it and claim “humanitarian reasons”, but it was plainly obvious during Covid, with e.g. UK companies complaining that fruit is gonna rot on the fields without immigrant labour... like, have you considered hiring locals??
02020202 6y ago
France, the land of the croissant, the home of the brown.
cryptica 6y ago
This sounds nice but whenever I hear something like this or any kind of philanthropy, I always think of all the people who missed out because of some technicality. What about people who were in the final stages of studying to be a nurse and were waiting for the government to send back some paperwork to begin work on the front line and they missed out on the citizenship by a few weeks... Or people who lost their job through no fault of their own and were sent back to their country just before the pandemic. I don't like philanthropy because it creates more cracks for people to fall through and more inequality based on luck. Citizenship is a very big gift. Kind of like a lottery. It's a huge deal for many people. I hope it went to very deserving people.
- mtarasevicius 6y ago
  perfect is the enemy of good...
  - cryptica 6y ago
    What's good for some people is often bad for some other people. Win-win scenarios are very rare. As a thought experiment, if you gave half the population 1 million dollars, then that would drive house prices through the roof and the unlucky half of the population would be enslaved to the lucky half paying high rents. The lives of the unlucky half would be absolutely ruined. There is no good there. It's zero-sum but in a way it's worse because it was 100% luck and those who worked hard were punished. To have real equality, you need equality of opportunity. Equality of outcomes is not equality; otherwise it's not equal if someone sacrifices less and gets more rewards; they are privileged, they are fortunate.
  - trextrex 6y ago
    Random acts of philanthropy like this are just that -- random and benefiting a very small number of random people. While there is no problem with that per se, people should have access to a decent life through fair, well defined systems rather than having to depend on some arbitrary system of lottery.
- mikelward 6y ago
aaomidi 6y ago
If you were able to do this. Fuck you for waiting for a public health crisis to do this. Do you know how many families you've impacted because of citizenship? I'm glad you're doing it now but I'm still pissed for the missed opportunity.

Service garuntees citizenship! Would you like to know more? Jokes aside, seems reasonable enough to grant citizenship for those who have performed exceptional civic duty.

kergonath 6y ago
To be fair, this fast track should be the norm. The naturalisation process is insanely long intentionally.
- ronyfadel 6y ago
  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.
  - yodsanklai 6y ago
    Once you are eligible for citizenship (which can take a long time) You must 1. take an appointment to have your document checked (waiting time 1 year) 2. take an appointment to submit the actual application (1 year) 3. wait for the result, 1 1/2 year. So by the time you are eligible, it can take 3-4 years before you know the outcome of your application. These 3-4 years don't serve any obvious purpose that I can think of.
    - BossingAround 6y ago
      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 then find out that the only person that can accept the application has not arrived to the office, and so the whole trip was for nothing (personal experience). Countries seem to have a hard time explaining spending money on efficient dealing with immigration. The whole immigration process is highly stressful even in the EU; I can't imagine how stressful it is in the US, which treats immigrants quite poorly (in my humble opinion).
      - raverbashing 6y ago
        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 that. And while people might complain about German bureaucracy, they at least make an effort to do things by the book (meaning: if your appointment says a certain time, you'll be seen at that time) And American bureaucracy also has its quirks and complications when seen from outside.
        kergonath 6y ago
        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.
      - pjc50 6y ago
        The inefficiency is deliberate. It's a way of controlling immigration numbers without being seen to do so.
        kergonath 6y ago
        Yes, exactly.
    - ronyfadel 6y ago
      I did the procedure in arguably the préfecture under the most pressure (Paris), and from the day I applied, it took 9 months to get the interview and 6 months to get the citizenship. That was it, less than 1.5 years in total. It took roughly the same time for almost everyone that I know that applied. The only cases that I know of that took longer were people with "exotic" statuses, e.g. people who didn't live full time in France and owned businesses in different countries that they had to visit often to physically tend to.
      - yodsanklai 6y ago
        When was it? A few years ago, they added a new requirement that you don't apply directly to the "prefecture" but you have to go through an additional step which takes about a year. My gf is applying for citizenship at the moment, I've described the timeline for her situation. It's been now more than 3 years since she started her application, including 14 months waiting for their decision. And she'd been living in France for more than 10 years before that and graduated from a French university. It probably would have been easier to just get married... BTW, congratulations for your citizenship. I'm glad it was efficient for you.
        ronyfadel 6y ago
        It was in late 2017, and done in 2019.
  - kergonath 6y ago
    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).
- pseudo0 6y ago
  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.
  - ucha 6y ago
    It's simpler than that in some cases, only 2 years of residency are needed if you're going to uni there.
  - Jacqued 6y ago
    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: personal experience with friends and my so.
    - hef19898 6y ago
      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 time I checked there were two institutes in Germany with the proper certification, one in Frankfurt and one in Berlin. Then Covid hit I didn't check again. Paperwork seems to be a pain in the ass, so. That being said, it seems easier than getting German citizenship.
      - touisteur 6y ago
        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.
- fakedang 6y ago
  How short should it be? 6 months? 3 months? Some comments from the pro-immigrant side astound me... France has one of the most generous immigration policies imo. Citizenship in 5 years can easily be obtained by an highly-educated and skilled immigrant. They don't demand an exceptional knowledge of French or French customs and values. Source:- considered it a few years back, decided against it
atoav 6y ago
As someone who has some (immigrant) friends which try/tried to get a foothold in Germany usually the opposite is the norm: You can do everything by the book, be the perfect citizen and in the and you are thanked by daily racism and a bureaucratic maze. To have the strength to stay a good person through all of that is a big achievement. This is why I think showing as a society doing things the right way counts. This is the foundation of the unwritten societal contract: if you go by the rules everything will turn out well for you. If you break the rules, act egoistic etc, you might end up in a bad place. This is why stuff like coruption, worker exploitation, tax evasion etc is worse than just stealing the people's money — it is also undermining the trust into that unwritten societal contract. This contract is of course fiction Which means that believing into it is either optimistic or naive depending on your country. But if it breaks down thing will only get much worse
- eastendguy 6y ago
  I am curious what kind of problem had or have your friends? Usually it is quite straightforward to get citizenship in Germany. Have a job for 7 years and no criminal record, and you can apply. Source: The (formerly) foreign colleagues I know had no problem with the process.
  - SlateBlate 6y ago
    I studied in Germany and then worked there for four years. They counted my years of study toward citizenship which was awesome. This depends on which region you were in though, some regions only counted 7 years after you started working full time. This was years ago, so things may have changed now.
- synecdoche 6y ago
  A glass is seen as either half full or half empty. All that can be perceived as racist is not necessarily so. There could be a number of reasons for unpleasant outcomes, none more likely than the other.
  - gentaro 6y ago
hef19898 6y ago
France always had a way to citizenship called, I paraphrase here, "citizenship by blood spoiled". Quite often used in case of members of the foreign legion. It basically says, that when you get hurt or wounded while serving the French Republic you are eligible to become a French citizen. Fair enough, if you ask me.

jollofricepeas 6y ago

The US could learn from this but is far too anti-immigrant to do the same. Americans accept immigrants into their Armed Forces but regularly deport them even after they’ve served and been in combat.

mi_lk 6y ago
> regularly deport them for what reasons?
- aksss 6y ago
  Crime will do it
- gnopgnip 6y ago
  In many countries work visas only last for a limited number of years, if you don't get married, you need to leave or you will be deported.
markdown 6y ago
> Americans accept immigrants into their Armed Forces but regularly deport them even after they’ve served and been in combat. The United Kingdom as well: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/05/where-is-the-fairness-fijis-british-army-veterans-fight-for-a-life-in-uk https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/05/where-is-the-f...
- koreanguy 6y ago
  unfortunately, sadly i think many of them should have been given right of stay in the country, if they served the nation. that is a extremely heavy deadly job. returning them back home would be unwise .
ulfw 6y ago
Speaking of which... how will Covid vaccinations for the general public happen in America? Do you have to show ID? Passport? Proof citizenship? What about undocumented immigrants? They're human beings and can infect everyone else too. Has anyone thought of them?

HuwytNashi_006 6y ago

So if you're an indigenous Frenchman you're automatically entitled, but Africans must literally risk their lives before being eligible? And people are celebrating this... Why should ethnically French have a greater right to France than newcomers? It may have been their grandfather's homeland but it must not be their grandson's if we're ever going to progress. We're better than that now.

afroboy 6y ago
France did that during WW1 and WW2 they fought that war mostly with North Africans specially Algerians and rewarded them with genocides.
- Leherenn 6y ago
  There's a lot to be said about France and other European powers treatment of their colonial troops, but North Africa certainly wasn't the main provider of soldiers. From Wikipedia: "At the end of the war on November 11, 1918, the French had called up 8,817,000 men, including 900,000 colonial troops.". Note that this includes all colonies as well as "French troops" stationed in the colonies (apparently half that number). Another Wikipedia article cites around 270'000 people from Northern Africa among them 180'000 soldiers.
- throwaway744678 6y ago
  > rewarded them with genocides That is a strong claim. Any evidence to back it up?
  - afroboy 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9tif_and_Guelma_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9tif_and_Guelma_massacre
rubycon22 6y ago
This is like asking why ethnically African people have a greater right to Africa than non-African people. Sounds dumb doesn't it?

thefz 6y ago

Reminds me of that case, in France too, in which a Malian immigrant has been offered citizenship and a job as a firefighter after he risked his life climbing a building to save a kid: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-hero/france-offers-citizenship-to-malian-immigrant-who-scaled-building-to-save-child-idUSKCN1IS0UF https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-hero/france-offers...

kyawzazaw 6y ago
Also mentioned in the linked artcile
captn3m0 6y ago
Also https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-train-terror-attack-citizenship-20190131-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-train-terror-attac... >Three California men have been granted French citizenship for their role in thwarting a terror attack on a French train in 2015.
DaedPsyker 6y ago
France usually gives citizenship for service or sacrifice to France,'Français par le sang versé', French by spilled blood.
- FooHentai 6y ago
  IIRC this citizenship pathway is almost uniquely French, and one of the main reasons people sign up to the French Foreign Legion.
  - justnotworthit 6y ago
    France is stereotyped as particularly culturally jingoistic. I wonder why France uniquely (among large countries?) has these offers of citizenship.
  - qqn 6y ago
    "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=26&titre=Can-a-foreign-legionnaire-become-French https://en.legion-recrute.com/mdl/info_seul.php?id=39&block=...

omnibrain 6y ago

And in Germany ITS nurses that came to Germany as toddlers get threatened with deportation amidst the pandemic...

koreanguy 6y ago

oh dear, now large influx of immigrants will see this as a deal done, more would be put at risk. not only that but coronavirus reaching france from the outside is now even worse with this reward. there is legal framework to resettle in all the European western nations. every illegal spends above 5k to reach the EU on dodgy paths. terrible news. those front line workers should be deported after their visa expires.

bmsleight_ 6y ago

As a person that leans towards socialism. I want to understand from someone who leans towards capitalism, the reluctance with immigration. We have people who will travel large distances for a potential benefit (i.e risk takers), who like the articles mentioned, are happy to work hard. This is the ideal characteristics of an entrepreneur or early employee or a start-up. More labour, lowers labour costs. What is the reluctance with immigration ?

bruceb 6y ago
"lowers labour costs" So you want to drive down wages for working people? Better to take highly educated people who are going to compete against other highly educated people, not people who will compete against Americans who are less educated and who are not financially well off.
the-dude 6y ago
If you are so curious, maybe you should do some more research. I suggest visiting some suburbs of Paris, or Stockholm. Furthermore, we are already in the EU, which is a trade-block only, favoring capitalists ( and driving down labor costs ). edit: If you want hard numbers, look up the labor participation for NL.
- tuwtuwtuwtuw 6y ago
  I have visited suburbs of Paris and Stockholm several times since I have relatives who have lived there. What is your point?
tomp 6y ago
There needs to be a balance. Unlimited immigration is unsustainable (Europe can’t support 3bn people), so there have to be some limits. Also, I value my culture (not in the “food & language” sense, but in “enlightenment values” sense), and have no interest in admitting more people who don’t value or respect this culture. Finally, you need to correctly read the situation. Most pro-immigration people support it to lower labour costs. They will of course deny it and claim “humanitarian reasons”, but it was plainly obvious during Covid, with e.g. UK companies complaining that fruit is gonna rot on the fields without immigrant labour... like, have you considered hiring locals??

02020202 6y ago

France, the land of the croissant, the home of the brown.

cryptica 6y ago

This sounds nice but whenever I hear something like this or any kind of philanthropy, I always think of all the people who missed out because of some technicality. What about people who were in the final stages of studying to be a nurse and were waiting for the government to send back some paperwork to begin work on the front line and they missed out on the citizenship by a few weeks... Or people who lost their job through no fault of their own and were sent back to their country just before the pandemic. I don't like philanthropy because it creates more cracks for people to fall through and more inequality based on luck. Citizenship is a very big gift. Kind of like a lottery. It's a huge deal for many people. I hope it went to very deserving people.

mtarasevicius 6y ago
perfect is the enemy of good...
- cryptica 6y ago
  What's good for some people is often bad for some other people. Win-win scenarios are very rare. As a thought experiment, if you gave half the population 1 million dollars, then that would drive house prices through the roof and the unlucky half of the population would be enslaved to the lucky half paying high rents. The lives of the unlucky half would be absolutely ruined. There is no good there. It's zero-sum but in a way it's worse because it was 100% luck and those who worked hard were punished. To have real equality, you need equality of opportunity. Equality of outcomes is not equality; otherwise it's not equal if someone sacrifices less and gets more rewards; they are privileged, they are fortunate.
- trextrex 6y ago
  Random acts of philanthropy like this are just that -- random and benefiting a very small number of random people. While there is no problem with that per se, people should have access to a decent life through fair, well defined systems rather than having to depend on some arbitrary system of lottery.
mikelward 6y ago

aaomidi 6y ago

If you were able to do this. Fuck you for waiting for a public health crisis to do this. Do you know how many families you've impacted because of citizenship? I'm glad you're doing it now but I'm still pissed for the missed opportunity.