Covid: France rewards frontline immigrant workers with citizenship
bbc.com
bbc.com
>Three California men have been granted French citizenship for their role in thwarting a terror attack on a French train in 2015.
"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=...
Even a national, recognized media don’t buy it: https://www.sudradio.fr/societe/revelations-sur-laffaire-mam...
Don’t forget this happened in a context of permanent terror attacks that eroded the image of immigrants. In particular, it conveniently happened less than two months after the hostage-taking of 23 March 2018 which lead to the death of lieutenant-colonel Beltrame, an episode that shocked the public opinion.
Jokes aside, seems reasonable enough to grant citizenship for those who have performed exceptional civic duty.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think it is easier than getting German citizenship (and others: naturalisation in Switzerland is notoriously very difficult), but it’s not necessarily saying much.
As another commenter said the time can be reduced to 2 year before you can apply but that doesn't mean much. From personal experience, I've been living in france for about 8 years now and everytime I have to deal with immigration services it can be a nightmare.
here is one: after arriving when my visa comme close to an end by a few month I aplied to get a 1 year residency card, I got that card 2 years later just before I got my first diploma.
every 3 months I would have to go to the prefecture at 6/7AM wait outside in the cold only to be told every now and then at 4pm sorry you're not going to pass today try again tommorow. why did I have to go every 3 month? well to give that the exact same papers I gave them the time before, If you didn't have them on you that day because you didn't think you would need to have a copy of the papers you've already given well that too bad for you. after 1year and a half of this, the person with whom I was having the apointement asked by I was here because apparently they can't find my folder. expect I have in my hand a document from this same prefecture aknowledging that I deposited my document and that I can legally stay for the next 3 months (and copies of the previous ones), of course I had to give them on the stop every document they needed or go back and wait for another apointement where you would have to explai the situation once a gain. this meant that every time I had to go to the prefecture I had a backpack on my back with every document I had on my house that I thought could remotly be relevant, because the official list of require documents is for indicative purposes only and they can ask you for a lot more on case to case basis.
second anecdote, if you have a foreign driving living from a country with which france has an agreement with. you have exchange it for a french one once you start working withing the limit of 1 year. At the time I had to the only way to do it is by getting an apointement online, expect the website to get the apointement form is closed, it opne for less than 5 min while crashing continully on a sunday at midnight, after trying for I few month I sent emails explaining the situation -> no reponse and went in person to the prefecture only to be told sorry that's not our problem and was given no clue on how to try to fix this. thanks to covid the process for converting driving licenses is now fully online, I aplied when they first announced this beginning of last summer, I'm still waiting for any news positive or negative.
Then, add all the difficulties an administration can throw at you (you sent an uncertified copy? too bad; the document with the exact title does not exist in your country of origin? Too bad; Records were lost because of a civil war? Too bad; You did not check the box L-430-b on the cf-740 form even though you should have because you were born on a full moon from parents working for a watchamacallit factory? Too bad; etc ad nauseam).
These difficulties depend a lot on where you’re from; it’s quite different for rich Americans than for poor Malians. So yes, it’s generous on paper but the devil is in the implementation details, as with all bureaucracy.
Also, it’s quite expensive if you consider the whole process.
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
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
This was years ago, so things may have changed now.
If you're not generally at risk of experiencing racism (ie. you are of the majority ethnic group), of course it is easy to rule out. It's hardly a glass half empty/half full type of problem.
These statements from your comment and the parent comment to seem to mean essentially the same thing.
> All that can be perceived as racist is not necessarily so
> It's extremely difficult to determine what negative action is motivated by racism and which isn't
The difference is how likely you are to assume possible racism is actual racism. The "glass half full/empty" metaphor expresses that difference quite well.
I addressed this quite clearly:
If you're not generally at risk of experiencing racism (ie. you are of the majority ethnic group), of course it is easy to rule out. It's hardly a glass half empty/half full type of problem.
A glass half empty/half full metaphor implies that the perception is simply down to personal optimism, which as I said, is clearly a gross oversimplification.
Of course someone who is at risk of experiencing racism is more likely to judge an act to be racist, but that doesn't make them right. In fact, they may be more likely to attribute innocent acts to racism, just as someone who rarely experiences racism is likely to make the opposite judgement more often than is justified.
My point is that we are arguing about something that was already expressed by the parent under what I believe to be a more generous interpretation of their use of that metaphor.
Americans accept immigrants into their Armed Forces but regularly deport them even after they’ve served and been in combat.
for what reasons?
The United Kingdom as well: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/05/where-is-the-f...
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?
If you serve in the armed forces and don't commit crimes, and apply for citizenship you will most likely get it.
Also the US accepts alot more immigrants than Japan, China, and many other countries.
Most of the complaints about immigration come down to this, there is much more demand than "supply".
Similarly, even the smallest companies (like miniscule, 5-people startups) are able to get visas for people who meet the college degree requirement with basically no issue.
Also, they don't tie your work visa to your employer[1], so you don't get indentured servitude or the threat of getting kicked out of the country after being fired.
Meanwhile I have heard countless horror stories from many people trying to do even the most basic stuff when it comes to immigration in the US. And it sure sounds like you are, at a basic level, treated like a suspicious person who might be a criminal.
You can say "oh look at the numbers" but I have heard roughly zero positive things about the American immigration experience. And (what I think is the most important thing), I have heard many stories about the opacity and randomness of the American bureaucracy.
And, you know what? Most countries _don't_ just kick someone out on the first crime they commit. And they don't try to hold it over the head of the person. It's possible to have an immigration system that doesn't treat the people coming in as indentured servants.
[1] HSFP visa non-excepting, but if you can get HSFP you can get a standard working visa
"most countries _don't_ just kick someone out on the first crime they commit."
Neither does the US. Most of the time the crimes that lead to deportation are felonies. Why is the US obligated to keep non citizens who commit serious crimes?
The US is under no obligation to take anyone.
The system certainly isn't perfect, warrants criticize. But some of the complaints are ridiculous and come down to again way more demand than supply.
(Update, I don't agree with you, but I hope HNers will not downvote you as a few are)
Of course countries can do whatever they want (just from the notion of application of power). But I see immigration as a two way street. There's an invitation to come into a society, and a request to participate in it. Other people in society get second chances, they get opportunities to improve... I feel like extending that to everyone is the logical conclusion of a just society.
And... yeah maybe there's some abstract notions that underpin the US system. But when you look at the facts on the ground, I just don't see how you justify the draconian decisions applied to people after they've been a part of society for so long. What's the point of a bunch of theory if the practice turns into things like "ICE can lock someone up for years without them being allowed to see a judge"?
At least it's not at Australia-level cruelty, I guess...
Even beyond than that, there are multiple facets of both legal and illegal immigration. Maybe the US both accepts larger numbers of immigrants legally but is also more intolerant of certain kinds of applicants than others.
When dealing with huge issues, I think it's deceptively easy to simplify the issue more than you realize. I know I've ended up in arguments where after far too much effort I realized we both actually more or less agreed with each other, but were simply focusing on different aspects of a larger issue.
The overwhelming majority of people in Japan, China, etc. hasve ancestral roots in their respective countries going back thousands of years before written history. They live in “their land”, their ancestors’ land.
On the other hand, America as we know it is a country of immigrants, practically every “native” American is an N-th generation immigrant, 2 <= N <= 25.
It’s silly to compare immigration policy without regard to historical origins of countries.
In terms of popular political support I would say that the United States is very anti-immigrant, and has been for a very long time. The reason the U.S. continues to let in so many immigrants is because of business interests, which have always held considerable political power. And the reason the U.S. has such diversity of immigrants is because of the peculiarity of our laws (e.g. by promoting so-called chain migration, a term Trump has turned into a pejorative), which have largely stayed the same because of inertia and political deadlock, but as you pointed out this is likely to change soon.
Also, the U.S. is no longer unique in terms of its large foreign born population. The U.K., for example, has roughly the same percentage. Brexit is no coincidence. Ditto for Germany. Though AFAIU German anti-immigration sentiment is mostly focused on immigrants from outside the E.U. (e.g. Turkey), whereas a large part of the sentiment in the U.K. is focused on Eastern European immigrants. Thus Angela Merkel has managed to placate voters by tacitly supporting harsher restrictions at the E.U. border, the short-lived Syrian influx notwithstanding. Brexit was driven in part by, e.g., people being pissed at low-wage Polish migrants.
I'll agree that the U.S. isn't worse than other countries. And I suppose our history as being a melting pot relatively unique unto the world is still worth something. (Though many parts of Latin America also saw similar migration flows at the turn of the 18th century. There are still German speaking towns in Brazil, Welsh speaking towns in Argentina, and a curious number of ethnic Japanese all over South America.) But we don't really stand out anymore one way or the other.
Plus H1B is limited to having degrees (or a lot of work experience) in a small subset of occupations.
The US could bring over 1 million doctors in one year if it were legal.
H1B is only one specific case of immigration: generally speaking the developed world allows for unconstrained immigration if you have a job offer. Americans are particularly restricted in hiring foreigners, which is also one reason why it has so much illegal immigration.
The first limit on immigration in the US was the Page act in 1875, which restricted immigration of Chinese women.
Before that there were no limits.
Yeah, it seems now it needs to cage children to deter their pesky parents from seeking opportunities in the land of opportunity.
one is that USA for being the world superpower and through their media monopoly is always in the spotlight.
The second is that USA spend too much time saying how wonderful they are (that if you look to history with a little objectivity is not so wonderful). Reaction to this is almost inevitable.
I would like to present a trivial recent example: as you know, USA retired from the climate Paris agreement and, in general, is not doing so much like other nations despite being the worst in per capita terms.
Well, it seems that the new president want to go back to the Paris agreements and is framing it like "going back to led the world" in climate change. Going back to led the world? really?
I know, I know, this a sentence for internal consumption but still, how do you think it sounds in other countries?
I didn't touch the little fact of invasions of third countries and military bases all around the world.
So, maybe there is something to this fad? Maybe take it like feedback to correct a few things?
Do you have sources to back any part of this statement? It would be surprising to see US doing less and being worth that, for example, Germany and its coal or China and its industrial complex. Otherwise it seems to be another example of "blatantly false anti-US comments like this get voted up without any data to back them up".
It seems that what it's in dispute is the "not doing so much like other nations". I would say there are two ways to look at it: pledges and historical data.
I don't think is necessary to demonstrate that the USA current pledges are below the Paris agreement countries.
For historical I just will take 2019 that was a specially good year for USA CO2 reductions.
from https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-leads-world-reducing-co...
>>"It’s true that, according to the IEA’s February 2020 report, the U.S. achieved a greater absolute reduction in CO2 emissions than any other country, in 2019. However, claims that the U.S. therefore “led the entire world” or was a “global leader” in CO2 emissions were belied by the fact that other countries (including Germany, Japan, and likely others) achieved a superior rate of reduction in CO2 emissions. Although not a country, the European Union achieved both a larger absolute reduction and a greater rate of reduction in CO2 emissions than the US did. "
(1) - https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...
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.
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.
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 ?
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.
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??
Do you have a source for this claim?
As far as culture goes immigrants assimilate. By the third generation it’s rare to actually be able to speak the language of their ancestors. Catholic immigrants to the US were feared as agents of Rome. Now the average American Catholic has a Protestant conception of what religion is, they’re so mixed in. Or look at Asian Americans. From the point of view of someone living in China the idea that people actually identify with this is more than a little absurd. It’s like white. This identity has no purchase in the emigrant sending countries. In the end without continuing immigration all ethnic communities that are not closed to intermarriage dissolve.
As far as humanitarian reasons go for opposing immigration controls see Fabio Rojas or Bryan Caplan. We exist.
If it were just about population, why is there no concern with natural population rise due to birth rates?
> 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.
Surely then it would be possible to institute a "cultural test" where people who do agree with "enlightenment values" are free to immigrate. I also think it is incredibly questionable for europe to lay claim to "enlightenment values", as if those are a single unified system of values that belongs solely to europe and is matched by modern european states.
Probably because in most/all Western countries birth rates are at or below replacement rates, so the only reason the population is still rising is due to immigration.
[0] - https://www.heritage.org/immigration/report/the-fiscal-cost-...
Also, I noticed that the more socialist a country leans the more difficult it is to immigrate largely due to the potential burden that person may place on society (they require you to have skills or capital, not have certain diseases, certifications, ect).
Most people who are critical of capitalism are conflating capitalism and corporatism. The essence of capitalism is hard to argue against without rejecting individual rights or currency or something similarly non-controversial and ingrained in society.
On the condition that the welfare state is minimal, though.
Countries are not reluctant to allow immigration, they are reluctant to allow immigration of potentially harmful people (as long as we're below immigration capacity)
Proxies for "harmfulness" are:
- different culture estimated via parent citizenship, religion, and language
- less wealth, estimated by income (having a job already), income potential (education) and/or money in the bank account
In general, power-hungry politicians should aim for obtaining higher populations because it means more power.
Oddly, a little bit of gate keeping would actually help. Everything in moderation, a little bit of open borders, a little bit of gate keeping, a little bit of everything - but not too much. Japan might be on the opposite side of things with a little too much gate keeping. We need vigilant balance (constantly reassess, and calculate the impact of a batch immigrants across say ... 30 years, and project how we need to adjust the pipeline to maintain a healthy growth/quality of life balance).
I’ll tell you what I can’t stand though. I can’t stand people that minimize the logistical element of increasing the population of a region to a moral and emotional argument. If you don’t carefully consider capacity, and reduce the argument to platitudes of ‘this has always been a land of immigrants’, you will certainly fuck us by adding to already growing issues of a hyper competitive economy where people are fighting tooth and nail for unstable low wage gig jobs, competitive and costly higher education, hyper competitive knowledge industries, and of course the hyper hyper hyper fucked and competitive housing market.
I want us to seriously consider why we want to add more to a pot where we are already getting cramped in a variety of ways.
They are almost entirely orthogonal.
The intersection is in the relationship between "free trade" and immigration. That is, why should goods be free to trade but not labor, not that I'm advocating either way in this comment.
The less they pay, the better for them. Don't like the misery salary? Look at the queue of people looking for the job willing to work for less.
It is middle and lower class workers who hate competition from low income workers. The miserable salary in the "rich" country is being rich in a poor country.
It is the middle and lower class those that suffer from the higher criminal rates because they are the ones who are being stolen or their houses occupied.
The rich live isolated in good places, with private security.
There are additional problems like the cultural one. Islam religion demands that their believers do not integrate ever in a non Muslim society so bringing millions of them to a non Muslim society means fragmenting it over time, like in Albania or Georgia(from Europe, not the American one).
Like the way they see / treat women to start with... People who want to be "nice" to migrants don't realize how bad that can be.
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.