End right to citizenship by birth, says French minister

The centuries-old right of any person born in France to claim citizenship should be scrapped because thousands of people are abusing the law to gain access to European standards of social security and healthcare in the French dependencies, a government minister said yesterday.

Faced with mass abuse of the droit du sol, a key republican principle since the 1789 revolution and a growing immigration crisis in France's overseas départements, François Baroin, the minister for overseas territories, said "no option should be ruled out".

The droit du sol, designed to populate the new post-revolutionary republic with legions of willing soldiers, originally gave every child born in France, no matter the nationality of their parents, the right to citizenship. It has since been withdrawn only once, by the collaborationist Vichy regime during the second world war.

In the early 1990s a rightwing government tightened the law, granting automatic citizenship only to children at least one of whose parents was also born in France. All others born on French soil are deemed to have a "calling" to become French, and can claim citizenship only if they are still in the country at 13.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1574616,00.html

My attitude - having many, many Hispanic friends - if you are born here, you are a citizen - period. I will fight with all my being to keep it so.

The first sentence of the 14th amendment is the relevant law: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Congress can make the rules regarding naturalization. Birth is a more primitive matter.

:hippie:

As it happened during witch hunt.