23 ms·

France grants citizenship to 12,000 Covid frontline workers

383 points by _Microft 5y ago

aaomidi 5y ago
I'm pretty sure Biden can do similar with an executive order. The feds do own the entire citizenship pipeline. Will we take care of the people who took care of us?
- datavirtue 5y ago
  Pretty sure we have zero undocumented healthcare pros in the US. You have to prove citizenship to change bed pans for $10 an hour.
  - afavour 5y ago
    There’s a big gap between “undocumented” and “citizen” though. I’m not familiar enough to know how many healthcare workers are here on a visa (student visa for medical school perhaps?) but in theory any that are could be granted citizenship or permanent residency.
  - InitialLastName 5y ago
    There are people of concern other than undocumented workers. There are presumably lots of people in one point or another of the healthcare pipeline (H1B's, green card holders, other types of working non-citizens. In light of an imminent boom (if you will) in demand for healthcare (especially elder-care related) we should probably be doing everything we can to encourage them to stay.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ruined 5y ago
    a huge fraction of nurses and other hospital staff are immigrants on work visa, particularly Filipinos. they are not undocumented but many would like citizenship.
  - wil421 5y ago
    Not true. My brother in laws wife is Costa Rican and was able to get a job doing similar work. She’s here legally and a permanent resident but not a citizen.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > You have to prove citizenship What makes you think such a strange thing? It obviously isn’t true. Have you never met a foreign healthcare worker?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - rockinghigh 5y ago
    The workers who gained citizenship in France were not undocumented. They were on temporary work visas.
- dmix 5y ago
  I hope not, America takes enough Canadian health care workers. This is better for countries with socialized medicine. They don’t need any more incentives to go.
  - mlinhares 5y ago
    This is, unfortunately, a win-lose game. If the US relaxed its requirements for nurses and doctors they could actually destroy the healthcare or many other countries. I've multiple friends that are experienced healthcare providers in Brazil that would love to move here but the rules are so draconic and complicated they have just given up. In a way I think it's good they have these requirements in place as that means people in Brazil won't be without doctors but its also pretty awful for me to say something like this given I DID move here to work, so I guess anyone else should have the same shot.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      > If the US relaxed its requirements for nurses and doctors they could actually destroy the healthcare or many other countries. Some medical professionals find the US healthcare system to be unconscionable. Some would move, some wouldn't. My doctor parents were offered jobs in the US but they refused on moral grounds - forgoing a somewhat higher salary - preferring to stay in Canada. The best outcome would be for them to move to the US, push down salaries (salaries in the US are something like 56% of all of healthcare spending) and that normalization would then stem the flow of foreign professionals while seriously benefitting Americans.
      - cycrutchfield 5y ago
        Doctor salaries only comprise 8-9% of total healthcare spending in the US
        arcticbull 5y ago
        hm you're right, I may have found a bad source.
- 0xcafecafe 5y ago
  I doubt. Forget citizenship, the US is not processing permanent residency for its employment based applicants, many of which are MDs working in hospitals. The backlog spans more than a decade and if the applicant passes away, their family is subject to self deportation. The backlog is due to antiquated per country caps which result in prolonged waiting times for populous countries (I am personally waiting for the last 11 years). Forget citizenship, forget changing legislation to give them green cards faster, the agency (uscis) is poised to waste 100,000 of such green cards this year (which cannot be recaptured without legislation next year). These numbers would otherwise be useful for applications whose petitions were approved up to 2013. Truly dystopian. https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-100-000-green-cards-at-risk-of-going-to-waste-in-covid-19-backlog-11628080201 https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-100-000-green-cards-at-ris...
  - wil421 5y ago
    Why shouldn’t we have per country caps? India and China could easily become the majority of immigrants due to the population size. Mexico is the top country of origin for lawful residents but they are our closest neighbor and many families have ties to both countries, especially in boarder towns. Followed by China and India.[1] [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-finding...
    - spywaregorilla 5y ago
      And... why is that bad?
      - wil421 5y ago
        Personally I don’t think it’s bad and allows immigration to happen from more cultures and regions. GP was the one who had an issue with the per country caps.
    - 0xcafecafe 5y ago
      The US issues approximately 1 million green cards per year. 86% of those (860k) are for family based and 140k are for employment based. Country caps for family based GCs is not a bad thing and in fact it does address your point domination by populous countries. In absence of a secondary differentiation criteria, per country caps are a good thing for family based GCs. But for the 140k employment based GCs, it depends on the company hiring the individual based on a skillset/qualification and sponsoring them for permanent residency. Google doesn't differentiate between an engineer from Argentina and an engineer from India (arbitrary example). Why should one get a greencard within a year and the other have to wait 10+ years? John oliver did a piece on it last year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXqnRMU1fTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXqnRMU1fTs
Proven 5y ago
Why not decide all matters on a case by case basis? If they manage to extend these lockdowns for another decade or so, they'll solve the problem of illegal immigration too!
sersi 5y ago
Smart action by the French government. France is not necessarily the most attractive country for medical workers and doctors in terms of income so being grateful for their support and giving them the citizenship is a smart thing to do when France needs more people doing those job.
- carlob 5y ago
  This has nothing to do with doctors... medical workers are a small minority of the people being granted citizenship, a lot of these were street cleaners, caretakers, grocery store employees... They just took a bunch of essential workers who would have requested citizenship otherwise and lowered the legal stay requirement from 5 to 2 years for them.
  - thatfrenchguy 5y ago
    Which is really smart because those people will remember they were valued by the government.
    - jhgb 5y ago
      Service guarantees citizenship!
      - make_clean 5y ago
        I see what you did there.
      - legacynl 5y ago
        This sounds kinda creepy, but I don't think it is. To be part of a society is to work together, if you've shown to be willing to go the extra mile for your fellow citizens, it's a good sign of being a good society member.
    - Factorium 5y ago
      Its not necessarily smart, these people will go on to impose large welfare, pension, healthcare burdens on the host society. Its easy for the French political elite to sign laws like this, but the social and economic burden of these decisions are borne by the lower classes. Its much more likely that this is a decision to add an extra 12,000 Macron voters to the rolls.
warning26 5y ago
That's great news! It seems strange to me that more countries don't offer citizenship programmes like this.
- brian_herman 5y ago
  I can only hope that other countries follow suit in europe. I wish the american government would take action but our immigration system is so broken it would just be a drop in the bucket.
  - vinay427 5y ago
    > our immigration system is so broken There are plenty of those in Europe as well, in case you've missed the barrage of news about migrant crises, xenophobic naturalization policies, etc. Certainly, there are also countries like France that don't treat citizenship like some reward at the end of a pointlessly contrived maze, and these countries (IMO) deserve credit for that.
- icare_1er 5y ago
  Making it easier for foreign doctors, nurses, etc, to become French, American, English, etc, cannot go together with "helping the southern hemisphere". The West is often accused of "pillaging" the rest of the planet. Whether it is true or false, what is sure is that this cannot go together with key workers and vital forces, being sucked into western hospitals.
  - nradov 5y ago
    It's difficult for doctors from the southern hemisphere to work in America. US licensing authorities don't consider most foreign medical training as sufficient so at a minimum they usually have to repeat residency.
    - hellbannedguy 5y ago
      And for good reasons.
baybal2 5y ago
A laudable advancement for the institute of state, and French political process.
mytailorisrich 5y ago
Some of it is laudable, some of it is just political show, IMHO. Indeed, was there really any pressing need to reduce the residence requirement from 5 to 2 years for garbage collectors? To be meaningful this sort of programme should focus on people who have gone significantly above and beyond otherwise it just dilutes the act of getting citizenship. For instance legionnaires wounded in battle can apply for citizenship... Clearly not the same at all. Let's not forget that next year is a major electoral year with both Presidential and general elections.
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  Why all this gatekeeping around citizenship? Why is 5 years the right number and not 2? If someone is going to live in your country long term you may as well give them citizenship sooner so they feel fully bought in as early as possible. And France has made the calculation here that, yes, garbage collectors that worked straight through the entire pandemic are both (a) vital and (b) likely to stick around long-term at this rate, so may as well officially recognize that now.
  - djbebs 5y ago
    Because citizenship is supposed to be an important life changing decision with massive consequences at every level. The dilution of the meaning of citizenship is a massive tragedy.
    - carlob 5y ago
      No the life changing decision is to move to a new country to become a garbage collector. If you consider that the person collecting your garbage during a pandemic getting the same rights as you have by being born in the right side of the globe is a dilution of the meaning of citizenship I really don't know how to explain this to you any better.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
bibinou 5y ago
it's 12000 in a year, not 12000 this week: "Un an après son lancement, 16 381 dossiers ont été déposés en préfecture sur l’ensemble du territoire français et 12 012 étrangers sont devenus Français" from the first link in the article: https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/actualites/communiques/marlene-schiappa-annonce-naturalisation-de-plus-de-12-000-travailleurs https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/actualites/communiques/marlene...
- bibinou 5y ago
  Yearly acquisitions and naturalisations (blue bar) from French National Statistic Office: https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2381644 https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2381644
em3rgent0rdr 5y ago
People should not have to be heroes as a precondition of citizenship. France did this before with the Malian migrant who performed a super-human feat of scaling the facade of a Paris apartment block to save a boy.
- lowkey_ 5y ago
  Risking his life to save a young child was a selfless and commendable act, and his actions really helped add color to the national perspective of illegal immigrants in France, who have often been discriminated against and viewed as selfish. He supposedly began working as a firefighter afterwards, which France set up for him, and has since become a citizen. What's the issue with that?
  - em3rgent0rdr 5y ago
    The issue is that *People should not have to be heroes as a precondition of citizenship*. There are hundreds of thousands of other illegal immigrants who are not super-human heroes but who still as a basic civil right deserve citizenship which France denies.
    - lowkey_ 5y ago
      Why should everybody who can illegally enter another country automatically become a citizen of that country?
      - cyberlurker 5y ago
        Pen testing border security. The bug bounty is citizenship.
    - Bayart 5y ago
      Citizenship isn't a basic civil right. People who follow the law can get long term visas. And those who want to stay can go through the process of becoming citizens. Plenty do, without any heroism involved. You don't get to show up and become a citizen just for the sake of existing.
bntyhntr 5y ago
I just watched Falcon and the Winter Soldier so I'm mentally biased, but this reminds me (or _doesn't_, I guess) of the plot, specifically the GRC. Specifically how attitudes changed towards people who crossed borders to help out when the blip was undone.
prpgnda 5y ago
It seems hacker news can't or won't read between the lines here. These people aren't medical professionals as implied, the real story is that immigration standards have been lowered, and covid is the justification.
randomopining 5y ago
West should only let in skilled workers like this, or proper refugees who claim asylum. Not just any random 25 year old guy.
908B64B197 5y ago
It's similar to an existing law that recognize citizenship through spilled blood (Français par le sang versé) [0]. Basically, if you were injured in a battle fighting for France, you get expedited citizenship. Interesting idea to extent it to frontline workers who risked their health during the pandemic. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion#Composition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion#Composit...
donquichotte 5y ago
As a cynic, I see this as a message to the healthcare workers that are unwilling to get vaccinated: you are replaceable, there are plenty of people waiting at our doors to take your jobs.
- baud147258 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure the Ministry of Health will go forward and push the non-vaccinated workers outside even if they don't have replacements available. And considering how much non-doctors healthcare workers are treated here, I can understand people not wanting to work there. (also it's not as if French hospitals require being French to work there)
- wiether 5y ago
  This a program launched (14/09/2020) even before the country started vaccinating its citizens. So yeah, you're spot on !
  - donquichotte 5y ago
    Sadly, it looks like I was: "Thousands of health workers across France have been suspended without pay for failing to get vaccinated against Covid-19 ahead of a deadline this week, Health Minister Olivier Veran said Thursday." [1] [1] https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210916-france-suspends-3-000-unvaccinated-health-workers https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210916-france-suspen...
soueuls 5y ago
Typical presidential election move, sadly. This cheapen our citizenship beyond stupidity, I did work during the pandemic and I am not expecting anyone to reward me for it, that’s what salary is for. Becoming French should be rewarded to the people who lived here for a while, showed that there were able to speak fluent French, proved that they knew a good deal of French history, literature as well as decent general knowledge and who embraced the culture. I am not surprised France is not France anymore. It’s not a country with shared ideals, it’s just a bunch of people living in the same area.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  Disagree a bit. Am French too, immigrant in another country. I understand I'm a guest, and do what you say in my new home. However, in exceptional circumstances, serving the country, even if by chance, warrant a bit of leeway. Our citizenship is not a "valuable" resource we must keep to ourselves, it's an admission we like each other. France has always been a bunch of people living in the same area. Go to Marseille and tell me they share your ideas, if you're from Normandy. If feel more at home in China than there :D
  - wiether 5y ago
    > France has always been a bunch of people living in the same area. This. Saying "France is not France anymore" is a typical MAGA (or FFGE) move. You have your own idea of what the country is, based on your narrow experience of it, and you see it moving from this view, so you think that the whole country is not the same anymore. But every country changes, the World changes. So no matter when you are or where you are, a country is always "not the same anymore". And if you liked what it was sometimes and don't like what it currently is, yeah, maybe it was "better" before. But some other people find it better now. And other even thought it was better at a time before you found it great. So saying a country is not as good as it was is just being an old man yelling at clouds.
- WastingMyTime89 5y ago
  > This cheapen our citizenship beyond stupidity As a French, I'm more ashamed by your comment than by anything these people might do. It's going to be hard to cheapen "our" citizenship given how low French born people have dragged it. > I am not surprised France is not France anymore. It’s not a country with shared ideals, it’s just a bunch of people living in the same area. Despite what the far right like to pretend, France never was a country of shared ideals. France history is one of continuous struggles and disagreements. It starts with war in the Vendée, through Thiers having the communards executed, the pro and anti-Dreyfusard to Petain having the communist members of parliament expelled. It's even more fun when you consider that most of the people who fought for France in its darkest hour did so from a frankly internationalist ideal. The defining factor of France if there ever was one is its strong and highly centralised state and its undying love for meddling with the lives of its citizen and private companies. France is first and foremost a state more than a nation. You could argue that the French nation is actually defined by adherence to the Jacobin ideal of the state. I really wish people stopped believing the tosh the state cronies served to peasants and labourers at the beginning of the 20th century to convince them to go die in a trench.

383 points by _Microft 5y ago

I'm pretty sure Biden can do similar with an executive order. The feds do own the entire citizenship pipeline. Will we take care of the people who took care of us?

datavirtue 5y ago
Pretty sure we have zero undocumented healthcare pros in the US. You have to prove citizenship to change bed pans for $10 an hour.
- afavour 5y ago
  There’s a big gap between “undocumented” and “citizen” though. I’m not familiar enough to know how many healthcare workers are here on a visa (student visa for medical school perhaps?) but in theory any that are could be granted citizenship or permanent residency.
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  There are people of concern other than undocumented workers. There are presumably lots of people in one point or another of the healthcare pipeline (H1B's, green card holders, other types of working non-citizens. In light of an imminent boom (if you will) in demand for healthcare (especially elder-care related) we should probably be doing everything we can to encourage them to stay.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ruined 5y ago
  a huge fraction of nurses and other hospital staff are immigrants on work visa, particularly Filipinos. they are not undocumented but many would like citizenship.
- wil421 5y ago
  Not true. My brother in laws wife is Costa Rican and was able to get a job doing similar work. She’s here legally and a permanent resident but not a citizen.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > You have to prove citizenship What makes you think such a strange thing? It obviously isn’t true. Have you never met a foreign healthcare worker?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- rockinghigh 5y ago
  The workers who gained citizenship in France were not undocumented. They were on temporary work visas.
dmix 5y ago
I hope not, America takes enough Canadian health care workers. This is better for countries with socialized medicine. They don’t need any more incentives to go.
- mlinhares 5y ago
  This is, unfortunately, a win-lose game. If the US relaxed its requirements for nurses and doctors they could actually destroy the healthcare or many other countries. I've multiple friends that are experienced healthcare providers in Brazil that would love to move here but the rules are so draconic and complicated they have just given up. In a way I think it's good they have these requirements in place as that means people in Brazil won't be without doctors but its also pretty awful for me to say something like this given I DID move here to work, so I guess anyone else should have the same shot.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    > If the US relaxed its requirements for nurses and doctors they could actually destroy the healthcare or many other countries. Some medical professionals find the US healthcare system to be unconscionable. Some would move, some wouldn't. My doctor parents were offered jobs in the US but they refused on moral grounds - forgoing a somewhat higher salary - preferring to stay in Canada. The best outcome would be for them to move to the US, push down salaries (salaries in the US are something like 56% of all of healthcare spending) and that normalization would then stem the flow of foreign professionals while seriously benefitting Americans.
    - cycrutchfield 5y ago
      Doctor salaries only comprise 8-9% of total healthcare spending in the US
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        hm you're right, I may have found a bad source.
0xcafecafe 5y ago
I doubt. Forget citizenship, the US is not processing permanent residency for its employment based applicants, many of which are MDs working in hospitals. The backlog spans more than a decade and if the applicant passes away, their family is subject to self deportation. The backlog is due to antiquated per country caps which result in prolonged waiting times for populous countries (I am personally waiting for the last 11 years). Forget citizenship, forget changing legislation to give them green cards faster, the agency (uscis) is poised to waste 100,000 of such green cards this year (which cannot be recaptured without legislation next year). These numbers would otherwise be useful for applications whose petitions were approved up to 2013. Truly dystopian. https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-100-000-green-cards-at-risk-of-going-to-waste-in-covid-19-backlog-11628080201 https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-100-000-green-cards-at-ris...
- wil421 5y ago
  Why shouldn’t we have per country caps? India and China could easily become the majority of immigrants due to the population size. Mexico is the top country of origin for lawful residents but they are our closest neighbor and many families have ties to both countries, especially in boarder towns. Followed by China and India.[1] [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-finding...
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    And... why is that bad?
    - wil421 5y ago
      Personally I don’t think it’s bad and allows immigration to happen from more cultures and regions. GP was the one who had an issue with the per country caps.
  - 0xcafecafe 5y ago
    The US issues approximately 1 million green cards per year. 86% of those (860k) are for family based and 140k are for employment based. Country caps for family based GCs is not a bad thing and in fact it does address your point domination by populous countries. In absence of a secondary differentiation criteria, per country caps are a good thing for family based GCs. But for the 140k employment based GCs, it depends on the company hiring the individual based on a skillset/qualification and sponsoring them for permanent residency. Google doesn't differentiate between an engineer from Argentina and an engineer from India (arbitrary example). Why should one get a greencard within a year and the other have to wait 10+ years? John oliver did a piece on it last year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXqnRMU1fTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXqnRMU1fTs

Proven 5y ago

Why not decide all matters on a case by case basis? If they manage to extend these lockdowns for another decade or so, they'll solve the problem of illegal immigration too!

sersi 5y ago

Smart action by the French government. France is not necessarily the most attractive country for medical workers and doctors in terms of income so being grateful for their support and giving them the citizenship is a smart thing to do when France needs more people doing those job.

carlob 5y ago
This has nothing to do with doctors... medical workers are a small minority of the people being granted citizenship, a lot of these were street cleaners, caretakers, grocery store employees... They just took a bunch of essential workers who would have requested citizenship otherwise and lowered the legal stay requirement from 5 to 2 years for them.
- thatfrenchguy 5y ago
  Which is really smart because those people will remember they were valued by the government.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    Service guarantees citizenship!
    - make_clean 5y ago
      I see what you did there.
    - legacynl 5y ago
      This sounds kinda creepy, but I don't think it is. To be part of a society is to work together, if you've shown to be willing to go the extra mile for your fellow citizens, it's a good sign of being a good society member.
  - Factorium 5y ago
    Its not necessarily smart, these people will go on to impose large welfare, pension, healthcare burdens on the host society. Its easy for the French political elite to sign laws like this, but the social and economic burden of these decisions are borne by the lower classes. Its much more likely that this is a decision to add an extra 12,000 Macron voters to the rolls.

warning26 5y ago

That's great news! It seems strange to me that more countries don't offer citizenship programmes like this.

brian_herman 5y ago
I can only hope that other countries follow suit in europe. I wish the american government would take action but our immigration system is so broken it would just be a drop in the bucket.
- vinay427 5y ago
  > our immigration system is so broken There are plenty of those in Europe as well, in case you've missed the barrage of news about migrant crises, xenophobic naturalization policies, etc. Certainly, there are also countries like France that don't treat citizenship like some reward at the end of a pointlessly contrived maze, and these countries (IMO) deserve credit for that.
icare_1er 5y ago
Making it easier for foreign doctors, nurses, etc, to become French, American, English, etc, cannot go together with "helping the southern hemisphere". The West is often accused of "pillaging" the rest of the planet. Whether it is true or false, what is sure is that this cannot go together with key workers and vital forces, being sucked into western hospitals.
- nradov 5y ago
  It's difficult for doctors from the southern hemisphere to work in America. US licensing authorities don't consider most foreign medical training as sufficient so at a minimum they usually have to repeat residency.
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
    And for good reasons.

baybal2 5y ago

A laudable advancement for the institute of state, and French political process.

mytailorisrich 5y ago

Some of it is laudable, some of it is just political show, IMHO. Indeed, was there really any pressing need to reduce the residence requirement from 5 to 2 years for garbage collectors? To be meaningful this sort of programme should focus on people who have gone significantly above and beyond otherwise it just dilutes the act of getting citizenship. For instance legionnaires wounded in battle can apply for citizenship... Clearly not the same at all. Let's not forget that next year is a major electoral year with both Presidential and general elections.

CydeWeys 5y ago
Why all this gatekeeping around citizenship? Why is 5 years the right number and not 2? If someone is going to live in your country long term you may as well give them citizenship sooner so they feel fully bought in as early as possible. And France has made the calculation here that, yes, garbage collectors that worked straight through the entire pandemic are both (a) vital and (b) likely to stick around long-term at this rate, so may as well officially recognize that now.
- djbebs 5y ago
  Because citizenship is supposed to be an important life changing decision with massive consequences at every level. The dilution of the meaning of citizenship is a massive tragedy.
  - carlob 5y ago
    No the life changing decision is to move to a new country to become a garbage collector. If you consider that the person collecting your garbage during a pandemic getting the same rights as you have by being born in the right side of the globe is a dilution of the meaning of citizenship I really don't know how to explain this to you any better.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

bibinou 5y ago

it's 12000 in a year, not 12000 this week: "Un an après son lancement, 16 381 dossiers ont été déposés en préfecture sur l’ensemble du territoire français et 12 012 étrangers sont devenus Français" from the first link in the article: https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/actualites/communiques/marlene-schiappa-annonce-naturalisation-de-plus-de-12-000-travailleurs https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/actualites/communiques/marlene...

bibinou 5y ago
Yearly acquisitions and naturalisations (blue bar) from French National Statistic Office: https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2381644 https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2381644

em3rgent0rdr 5y ago

People should not have to be heroes as a precondition of citizenship. France did this before with the Malian migrant who performed a super-human feat of scaling the facade of a Paris apartment block to save a boy.

lowkey_ 5y ago
Risking his life to save a young child was a selfless and commendable act, and his actions really helped add color to the national perspective of illegal immigrants in France, who have often been discriminated against and viewed as selfish. He supposedly began working as a firefighter afterwards, which France set up for him, and has since become a citizen. What's the issue with that?
- em3rgent0rdr 5y ago
  The issue is that *People should not have to be heroes as a precondition of citizenship*. There are hundreds of thousands of other illegal immigrants who are not super-human heroes but who still as a basic civil right deserve citizenship which France denies.
  - lowkey_ 5y ago
    Why should everybody who can illegally enter another country automatically become a citizen of that country?
    - cyberlurker 5y ago
      Pen testing border security. The bug bounty is citizenship.
  - Bayart 5y ago
    Citizenship isn't a basic civil right. People who follow the law can get long term visas. And those who want to stay can go through the process of becoming citizens. Plenty do, without any heroism involved. You don't get to show up and become a citizen just for the sake of existing.

bntyhntr 5y ago

I just watched Falcon and the Winter Soldier so I'm mentally biased, but this reminds me (or _doesn't_, I guess) of the plot, specifically the GRC. Specifically how attitudes changed towards people who crossed borders to help out when the blip was undone.

prpgnda 5y ago

It seems hacker news can't or won't read between the lines here. These people aren't medical professionals as implied, the real story is that immigration standards have been lowered, and covid is the justification.

randomopining 5y ago

West should only let in skilled workers like this, or proper refugees who claim asylum. Not just any random 25 year old guy.

908B64B197 5y ago

It's similar to an existing law that recognize citizenship through spilled blood (Français par le sang versé) [0]. Basically, if you were injured in a battle fighting for France, you get expedited citizenship. Interesting idea to extent it to frontline workers who risked their health during the pandemic. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion#Composition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion#Composit...

donquichotte 5y ago

As a cynic, I see this as a message to the healthcare workers that are unwilling to get vaccinated: you are replaceable, there are plenty of people waiting at our doors to take your jobs.

baud147258 5y ago
I'm pretty sure the Ministry of Health will go forward and push the non-vaccinated workers outside even if they don't have replacements available. And considering how much non-doctors healthcare workers are treated here, I can understand people not wanting to work there. (also it's not as if French hospitals require being French to work there)
wiether 5y ago
This a program launched (14/09/2020) even before the country started vaccinating its citizens. So yeah, you're spot on !
- donquichotte 5y ago
  Sadly, it looks like I was: "Thousands of health workers across France have been suspended without pay for failing to get vaccinated against Covid-19 ahead of a deadline this week, Health Minister Olivier Veran said Thursday." [1] [1] https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210916-france-suspends-3-000-unvaccinated-health-workers https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210916-france-suspen...

soueuls 5y ago

Typical presidential election move, sadly. This cheapen our citizenship beyond stupidity, I did work during the pandemic and I am not expecting anyone to reward me for it, that’s what salary is for. Becoming French should be rewarded to the people who lived here for a while, showed that there were able to speak fluent French, proved that they knew a good deal of French history, literature as well as decent general knowledge and who embraced the culture. I am not surprised France is not France anymore. It’s not a country with shared ideals, it’s just a bunch of people living in the same area.

xwolfi 5y ago
Disagree a bit. Am French too, immigrant in another country. I understand I'm a guest, and do what you say in my new home. However, in exceptional circumstances, serving the country, even if by chance, warrant a bit of leeway. Our citizenship is not a "valuable" resource we must keep to ourselves, it's an admission we like each other. France has always been a bunch of people living in the same area. Go to Marseille and tell me they share your ideas, if you're from Normandy. If feel more at home in China than there :D
- wiether 5y ago
  > France has always been a bunch of people living in the same area. This. Saying "France is not France anymore" is a typical MAGA (or FFGE) move. You have your own idea of what the country is, based on your narrow experience of it, and you see it moving from this view, so you think that the whole country is not the same anymore. But every country changes, the World changes. So no matter when you are or where you are, a country is always "not the same anymore". And if you liked what it was sometimes and don't like what it currently is, yeah, maybe it was "better" before. But some other people find it better now. And other even thought it was better at a time before you found it great. So saying a country is not as good as it was is just being an old man yelling at clouds.
WastingMyTime89 5y ago
> This cheapen our citizenship beyond stupidity As a French, I'm more ashamed by your comment than by anything these people might do. It's going to be hard to cheapen "our" citizenship given how low French born people have dragged it. > I am not surprised France is not France anymore. It’s not a country with shared ideals, it’s just a bunch of people living in the same area. Despite what the far right like to pretend, France never was a country of shared ideals. France history is one of continuous struggles and disagreements. It starts with war in the Vendée, through Thiers having the communards executed, the pro and anti-Dreyfusard to Petain having the communist members of parliament expelled. It's even more fun when you consider that most of the people who fought for France in its darkest hour did so from a frankly internationalist ideal. The defining factor of France if there ever was one is its strong and highly centralised state and its undying love for meddling with the lives of its citizen and private companies. France is first and foremost a state more than a nation. You could argue that the French nation is actually defined by adherence to the Jacobin ideal of the state. I really wish people stopped believing the tosh the state cronies served to peasants and labourers at the beginning of the 20th century to convince them to go die in a trench.