Seizing an opportunity between lockdowns last year, I had brought another long stay in France to a close and returned to London as a Briton. After several months in the UK, I have now made the opposite journey as a French citizen.
There is nothing too dramatic about this change of status. No one has stripped me of the nationality of my birth. As the official at the French consulate in London put it – when she presented my declaration of French nationality and warned me to "guard it carefully" – I am still British.
What dual nationality means, in selfish practical terms, is that I am once again free to roam the 27 EU countries at will. I can live in France without worrying how long I stay and how long I must then stay away from all EU territory before being permitted to return.
But it naturally goes deeper than an embittered personal rejection of Brexit. My acquisition of French nationality has a gold-plated finish, secured by coincidence rather than design in the same year that my French wife and I celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary.
It is not a step that ever occurred to me as a product of small-town northern England, where youthful awareness of France was limited to wallowing in the cloying melancholy of Francoise Hardy’s songs and ruing a family budget that put a school trip to Paris out of the question.
In an adulthood spent nipping between the two countries and living and working in both, an unmistakable connection to France has developed. Given my close attachment to the French side of my extended family, the wonder is that I did not cross the bridge years ago.
People have all sorts of reasons for possessing, and often treasuring, double nationality, or for seeking it in later years. For many, perhaps most, sentiment is more important than mere convenience. The Patricks and Siobhans born of Irish parents in Britain and other English-speaking parts of the world are likely to grow up feeling at least as Irish as anything else. Karim or Rachida, in their Parisian banlieue or provincial French town, will cling fiercely to Algerian roots.
To an open mind, it is surely the most natural and respectable of expressions of individual identity. Logically, problems should arise only in those rare cases where allegiances born of dual citizenship assume the combative edge, and even hatred of host countries, that can lead to extremist thoughts or acts.
Not everyone, of course, sees the innocence in, for example, preferring the culture or football team of a parent’s geographical origins to those of country of birth and upbringing.
In 1990, Norman Tebbit, an early populist of the British right who served as chairman of the Conservative party and at several ministries, devised what became known as the "Tebbit test". He argued that, which cricket team people from ethnic minorities supported was a barometer of whether they were "truly British"; a "large proportion of Britain's Asian population" would fail the test, he told the Los Angeles Times.
If that seems an absurdly harsh condition of Britishness, consider the spluttering outrage caused when the French anthem La Marseillaise was roundly jeered by a few hundred Tunisian supporters before a France-Tunisia football match in 2008. From the right of French politics, then president Nicolas Sarkozy led a chorus of indignation that would not have sounded out of place in a pantomime. He even spoke of the need to abandon games in such circumstances and, neatly overlooking the likelihood that most of those barracking the anthem were born in France, suspend future fixtures with the countries concerned.
It may be just as well that England face Germany and not France in the last 16 of the European Football Championship. I would no more boo an anthem than players taking the knee, but divided loyalty might have caused me to fail the Tebbit test.
The climax to the process of obtaining French nationality takes different forms. An online report of such an occasion in south-western France tells of people from nearly 40 different countries singing La Marseillaise together, led by the mayor, and in some cases making short speeches.
An acquaintance recalls another group ceremony, with pre-Covid-19 celebrations at the same London consulate where I sat, socially distanced by a Perspex screen, and discussed the formalities of my gesture with a solitary official. In the dossier, the official handed me a friendly if impersonal letter from President Emmanuel Macron describing France as "proud and happy" to welcome me as a new citizen.
Did I step from the building feeling more French than an hour or so earlier? A little. Less British? Not really; Brexit had already posed a stiff enough test to my sense of national identity. And I still feel more saddened by the outcome of the 2016 referendum than alienated from all those who voted Leave. The impulses of a majority of them had little to do with xenophobia or outright racism and everything to do with a belief – nonsensical as I find it – that "throwing off the shackles of the EU" would smoothly lead to the "Sunlit Uplands", which campaigners had promised. Remainers and Leavers will forever disagree on whether those with uglier motivations were numerous enough to swing the result.
At one of those huge and entirely futile anti-Brexit demonstrations in London, I spotted a banner held by another dual national. Adapted to refer to France and not Belgium, the slogan sums up my feelings precisely: "Fifty per cent British, 50 per cent French, 100 per cent European."
Colin Randall is a former executive editor of The National and writes from France and Britain
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- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
LAST 16 DRAW
Borussia Dortmund v PSG
Real Madrid v Manchester City
Atalanta v Valencia
Atletico Madrid v Liverpool
Chelsea v Bayern Munich
Lyon v Juventus
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Napoli v Barcelona
Cricket World Cup League 2
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Lost to Oman by eight runs
Beat Namibia by three wickets
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Beat Namibia by 43 runs
UAE fixtures
Free admission. All fixtures broadcast live on icc.tv
Tuesday March 15, v PNG at Sharjah Cricket Stadium
Friday March 18, v Nepal at Dubai International Stadium
Saturday March 19, v PNG at Dubai International Stadium
Monday March 21, v Nepal at Dubai International Stadium
A timeline of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language
- 2018: Formal work begins
- November 2021: First 17 volumes launched
- November 2022: Additional 19 volumes released
- October 2023: Another 31 volumes released
- November 2024: All 127 volumes completed
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Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup - Sept 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Lamsa
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Launched: 2014
Employees: 60
Based: Abu Dhabi
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Tips for job-seekers
- Do not submit your application through the Easy Apply button on LinkedIn. Employers receive between 600 and 800 replies for each job advert on the platform. If you are the right fit for a job, connect to a relevant person in the company on LinkedIn and send them a direct message.
- Make sure you are an exact fit for the job advertised. If you are an HR manager with five years’ experience in retail and the job requires a similar candidate with five years’ experience in consumer, you should apply. But if you have no experience in HR, do not apply for the job.
David Mackenzie, founder of recruitment agency Mackenzie Jones Middle East
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The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat & Other Stories From the North
Edited and Introduced by Sjón and Ted Hodgkinson
Pushkin Press
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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