Defining French national identity

Just what ‘Frenchness’ and French citizenship actually constitute have been the centre of controversial debate for decades, complicated by the legacy of the French empire and the growing population of immigrant minorities in France, notably from former colonies in the Maghreb and other parts of Africa. In the years after the end of the Second World War, French national identity became increasingly identified with European culture and norms, coinciding with the gradual creation of the European Union. In this context, French identity was defined in contrast to supposed ‘non-European’ ideals, leaving very little room for differences. This began to pose a serious problem for citizens with hyphenated identities whose origins were non-European.

According to France’s National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), there were 65.8 million people living in the country as of January 2014, the vast majority born with French citizenship. This number also includes 7.6 million individuals who were born abroad. Of this segment, 1.7 million were born with French citizenship, because one or both of their parents were French, and 6.9 million are classified as immigrants as they were born abroad with foreign nationalities. Interestingly, among this immigrant group, 2.3 million individuals, or 39 percent, are reported to have acquired French citizenship, in some cases in addition to their original nationality. 

For right wing groups in France, dual identities and even dual citizenship have frequently been viewed as a threat to social cohesion in the country. Their ire has been particularly focused on ‘visible minorities’, i.e. those immigrants whose race, religion, culture and customs signal them as ‘non-European’, but their rhetoric clearly demonstrates the rigidity of the interpretation of Frenchness, an interpretation that cuts across party lines and is institutionalized in French politics and society, leading to significant social othering of individuals who don’t look or sound French in the accepted way.

​Between 2008 and 2009, INSEE and France’s National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) conducted a far-reaching research project to investigate questions of identity and belonging in the country’s diverse population, notably among immigrants and their descendants. The study, the largest of its kind ever undertaken in France, collected responses from 22,000 individuals and established that there exists significant dissonance between identifying as French and being perceived as such. Nearly half of the immigrants the researchers surveyed reported that they were not perceived as being French, despite holding French citizenship. In addition, about 25 percent of second generation citizens, born of one or two immigrant parents, said the same. 

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On a grey Thursday in March, Nancy Shields took a seat inside a special room in Paris’s police headquarters, 6000 kilometres away from her birthplace in New Jersey, waiting for the ceremony that would officially make her a French citizen at the age of 63.

Shields is of Irish-American origin with a warm smile and vibrant reddish curls. After living in France for 38 years, it seemed appropriate that her naturalisation ceremony was taking place on St. Patrick’s Day.

Facing a small stage set up with the French flag and the head of Marianne, a symbol of France’s republican values, she perused the contents of the folder she had been given – amidst the official papers and documents were the lyrics to the Marseillaise, France’s national anthem, printed on a card tinted blue, white and red, along with a copy of The Declaration of the Rights of Man. As an official took the stage to deliver a speech emphasising France’s democratic values and the rights of all French citizens, Shields, who travelled through life on a U.S. passport, suddenly found tears coming to her eyes.

“For me it was very, very emotional. I felt like all those things we take for granted had been re-defined,” she said. “It’s not nothing to take on another nationality.”

Shields moved to France in 1978 for the adventure of living abroad and still retains a slight New Jersey accent despite all her years here. She began working as a journalist in Paris in 1980 and as time passed she embraced the French way of life wholeheartedly, learning how to ski in the Alps and raising perfectly bilingual children. But while she now identifies as both American and French, she has discovered that having a hyphenated national identity is a complicated endeavour in France. 

"I feel both nationalities but what’s really interesting is what other people see,” Shields said, noting that the slight American twang in her spoken French frequently leads people to believe that she’s a foreigner or a tourist, despite her familiarity with the language, customs and culture of the country.

“The identity question isn’t just internal, it’s external, and you’re constantly confronted with it,” Shields said.

“…I do feel called upon to demonstrate (Frenchness).”