Eric Ciotti, deputy secretary general of the UMP, recently proposed the reestablishment of “jus sanguinis” (right of blood) to obtain French nationality, while maintaining the “jus soli” (right of soil) — currently in force for everyone — for citizens of the European Union.
“We cannot grant nationality by chance,” argued the President of the Alpes-Maritimes Departmental Council at the time. He acknowledged that this issue posed “a real debate,” including within the UMP.
Nicolas Sarkozy (whose father is of Hungarian origin), during the 2012 presidential campaign, expressed his opposition to jus sanguinis, declaring: “Jus soli is France.”
Perplexed, the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, maintains his reluctance “on the entire implementation of jus sanguinis” but admits that “geographical areas of our country pose a real problem.”
The UMP deputy of Alpes-Maritimes and “son of an Italian immigrant” assures that he “would not be French if it were jus sanguinis that had applied. Eric Ciotti (also transalpine by heritage) probably not either. Like him, judging by their surname, many other protagonists of French political life, including some of the most uncompromising towards the ‘new’ claimants and ‘new’ arrivals.”
Freud might have some healthy explanations to help us understand what defies logic.
Such a cultural debacle can only be explained by the paralyzing effect that the FN provokes in this right (which aims to be “republican”?) that to confront the far-right, becomes “sinister.”
Jus soli remains the key to the cohesion and construction of the French identity of yesterday and the European one of tomorrow.
France has a special responsibility: against the concept of the ethnic nation, France invented the civic nation, founded not on blood but on values.
And this dates back very far: Clovis refused the division between Franks and Gauls, banned clan marriages, and set the example himself by marrying Clotilde, a Burgundian.
The process of hybridization of the Merovingian lineage began. Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths, Alamanni, Gallo-Romans, and Armoricans would merge: the narrative of “our ancestors the Gauls” was born.
In 1515, jus soli was formalized by royal decree: it was enough to be born and reside in France to be a free and equal subject. Ethically united, France had built the world’s first state on civic unity, reaffirmed by jus soli in 1790, during the French Revolution.
On October 10, 1945, General de Gaulle abolished the ethnic decrees of Vichy. He had not forgotten the Resistance, where French people of all origins fought to ensure France’s victory, united not by blood but by values.
History is a long thread: if we don’t know where we come from, we cannot know where we are going and want to go.
What a sadness to deviate for a few more votes…
