Citizenship

One of our homework assignments for tomorrow was investigating the US citizenship process and comparing it to the French system. I didn't spend a ton of time on it, but here are some things I learned.

US

- If you were born in the US, you are a citizen.
-If you were born to a US citizen, either mother or father, you are citizen even if you were born overseas.
- For naturalization, you need to be a legal foreign resident for 5 years (or 3 if you have married a US citizen), be a person of good moral character (including not having serious domestic issues or affairs), not be a member of the communist party unless your membership was involuntary, read/speak/understand basic English, and you have to take a test about American history and civics.

FRANCE

- If you are born in France but not to French parents, you have to live in France for 5 years after the age of 11 and apply for your citizenship after the age of 18. It can be refused.
- I am not sure about people born to French citizens overseas.
- If you marry a French person you can apply for citizenship after 2 years of marriage if you can prove that you have a sufficient knowledge of French.
- For other naturalization, you have to be "assimilated to French society" and not have a criminal record. It may be more complicated than that but our book was kind of vague. 80% of French citizenship requests get confirmed. I'm not sure about the US.
- Under the law shortly after the French Revolution, a person became a French citizen after living there for only one year. As my professor pointed out, at that point in history you might not have lasted the year anyway and it was probably safer to stay somewhere else! At any rate, I will be celebrating my unofficial dual citizenship in September.