French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux explained the reason for the reform in a statement to the press: “Given the many administrative hassles that certain citizens had to face when demanding a first issuing and specifically a renewal of their identity cards, I wished to provide an adequate response. There is a simple principle at stake: in the Republic in which we live, all French are equal before the law. In whatever ways they have obtained their French nationality, whatever are their personal histories, they have evidently the right to renew their identity documents under the same conditions as all other co-citizens”.

With the new decree, the French administration is required to consider former French passports and identity cards as a sufficient proof of applicants’ French nationality. Both documents are interchangeable; a former passport must be accepted to obtain a national identity card, and vice versa.

The need to prove French nationality when applying for the first issuing or renewal of an identity document first became an issue of public debate in 2009, when an increasing number of French nationals of foreign origin (sometimes third or fourth generation migrants) could not prove their nationality and consequently had their applications refused. French nationals born abroad also faced similar problems.

In 2002, 5 percent of applications to obtain a nationality certificate were rejected. This figure rose to 12 percent in 2007. Associations such as the French League of Human Rights (LDH) and the Socialist Party called for this rule to be changed, on the basis that it was discriminatory.

According to a 2003 decree (‘circulaire’), the administration could ask applicants to provide the original version of their grandparents’ or great-grandparents’ marriage certificate, and the original family record of their parentage and ancestry in order to prove their French nationality. Applicants were often asked to provide a nationality certificate obtained from the ‘Tribunal d’instance’ (small claims court). Such documentation was difficult to obtain, particularly when the ties to France dated back to the colonisation period or in cases involving the descendants of refugees born before World War II.

Read more:

Catherine Coroller, ‘Nationalité: preuves par l’absurde’, Libération (national daily), 11 January 2010

Laetitia Van Eeckhout, ‘Renouvellement des papiers d’identité: Hortefeux veut un changement en “profondeur”‘, Le Monde (national daily), 1 March 2010