![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
Citizenship scholars in Europe often focus on the institutional factors that influence naturalisation, but a less explored topic in the literature is the role of politics and group belonging in naturalisation behaviour—factors that have been proven to influence immigrants' behaviour in the North American context. Through analysis of the extensive Trajectories and Origins (2008) data-set, I find that interest in politics shapes naturalisation behaviour and outcomes, and living in an anti-immigrant climate, identifying as Muslim and feeling otherised is negatively correlated with naturalisation behaviour. Lastly, Arab immigrants are more likely to seek French naturalisation and have this status than White, non-EU immigrants. This paper sets a quantitative foundation for the role of political orientation and context, and ethnic group belonging in shaping immigrants' naturalisation behaviour in France. It ends with proposals for a future research agenda on studying the political integration of different ethnic groups in France, and Europe generally.
Acknowledgements
I thank my colleagues in the Sociology Department and the Interdisciplinary Immigration Workshop, and I thank two anonymous reviewers for their engagement with my work. Irene Bloemraad and Cybelle Fox provided crucial support and ideas as I developed and clarified my arguments. I equally extend my gratitude to the University of California-Berkeley, the Ford Foundation and the National Science Foundation (NSF) for financial support for my studies. Finally, I express my utmost gratitude to the creators of the survey, Patrick Simon and Cris Beauchemin, who provided guidance and support as I conducted analyses at the National Institute of Demographic Studies in Paris.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
[1] Non-citizens are allowed to have welfare benefits as long as they are able to prove their legal residency in France: http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/particuliers/F2787.xhtml.
[2] This is an assimilation requirement according to the French Ministry of Justice website: http://www.vos-droits.justice.gouv.fr/nationalite-francaise-11963/nationalite-francaise-par-naturalisation-12047/conditions-a-remplir-20781.html.
[3] From this point on, whenever I refer to ethnicity, I refer to belonging a particular ethno-racial group, as opposed to a religious one.
[4] This law followed a series of heated headscarf debates beginning with the ‘headscarf affair’ in 1989 when three teenage girls of North African origin were expelled for wearing hijabs in school (Killian Citation2003).
[5] Surely, ethno-racial minorities, such as Maghrebins (or North Africans) are typically conflated with being Muslim, but the overlap between people from Arab countries and Muslims is not perfect. Over a quarter of immigrants who identify as Muslim in my sample do not come from countries in the Arab world, and about 15% of immigrants in my sample who come from countries in the Arab world are not Muslim. Because questions on race and religion are not typically captured in French surveys, few, if any, scholars have disentangled the effects of race and religion in their research, with the exception of Adida, Laitin, and Valfort's (Citation2014) study. This analysis is another step in that direction.
[6] In the TeO survey, one in five immigrants lived in a ZUS, most often located in banlieues, compared to 5% of the majority French population. I should note that this varies widely by ethnicity. In my weighted sample of respondents, about a quarter of people from Arab countries, Near/Middle-Easterners and Black immigrants live in a ZUS compared to 16% of Asians and only 12% of non-EU Whites.
[7] In order to be a citizen, one has to have lived in France for at least five years, be occupationally stable, or at least be well on the way towards it, and have adequate French language skills and demonstrated social integration (Article 21-14-1 and 21-25-1, Paragraph 5: Acquisition of French Nationality by Public Authority Decision).
[8] For a more detailed information on the survey, visit the TeO website at: http://teo.site.ined.fr/ or refer to: https://www.epsilon.insee.fr/jspui/bitstream/1/16994/1/f1304.pdf.
[9] In fact, less than a third of EU immigrants in the TeO survey plan to request French citizenship as opposed to 75% of non-EU immigrants overall.
[10] Immigrants from sub-Saharan African countries and Asian countries were oversampled in this survey, so the weights account for this and better reflect the general immigrant population in France.
[11] Refugees, spouses of French citizens, and those who come from a ‘culturally and linguistically French country’ do not have to meet the five-year residency period to apply for citizenship (Article 21–19 and 21–20, Paragraph 5: Acquisition of French Nationality by Public Authority Decision).
[12] The average monthly income for 2008 was retrieved from the annual economic report published by INSEE: http://www.insee.fr/fr/ffc/tef/tef2011/tef2011.pdf. Over 8% of respondents refused to report their income; thus, I created another dummy variable in order to retain other individual information in my analyses.
[13] In 2007, the upper limit of FN voters was 17.3% in Aisne, with the lower limit of FN voters being 5.5% in Hauts-de-Seine. Generally, about a third of departments had over 15% of FN voters, another third had between 10% and 15% of FN voters, and the rest of departments had less than 10% of FN voters. The election data were gathered from the Ministry of Interior's website at: http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Elections/Les-resultats/Presidentielles/elecresult__presidentielle_2007/(path)/presidentielle_2007/index.html.
[14] The full report can be accessed at the following site: http://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world-2008/introduction#.U-PbMoBdUjM.
[15] For scholars interested in the effects of coming from particular countries, please refer to .
[16] Because I only focus on adult migrants from non-EU countries, my sample size is initially limited to 4431 immigrants. I further trim my sample by focusing on individuals who come from countries with at least five migrants to France, and who have no missing responses on variables other than income and being ‘seen as French’ (variables that have ‘missing’response dummies in my analyses). I end up with a total of 3447 individuals that I analyse in the two separate samples I describe in this section.
[17] More detailed country analyses also reveal that Vietnamese immigrants and non-Turkish Near/Middle-Eastern immigrants are more likely to be French citizens; and individuals from Senegal, Vietnam, Cambodia and other sub-Saharan African countries are more likely to intend to naturalise than non-EU White immigrants.
[18] According to EUDO's evaluation of France's outreach and implementation of citizenship policies, France is generally strong at implementing citizenship policies fairly, but a lot of individual discretion is given to lower-level bureaucrats to determine if a naturalisation application is accepted. Refer to: http://ind.eudo-citizenship.eu/acit/topic/citimp for more detailed country information.
