There are three main routes to becoming French - through marriage to a French person, through having a French parent or through living in France for at least five years.
Quick guide: Who is eligible for French citizenship?
Of the three, the residency route is the most common and it's also comparatively generous - many European countries require 10 years of residency before an application can be submitted.
But once the application process begins, it can be very slow indeed - the broad average is that it takes between 18 months and two years, but hidden within that are wide variations between areas, and between application types. It's not uncommon for people to wait up to five years for their application to be dealt with.
While the French Interior Ministry does not provide comparative statistics, data from some préfectures combined with experiences from readers of The Local does allow us to collate a picture of the delays, and what causes them.
Method
As mentioned, applying for citizenship through residency (par décret) is the most common route, but it's also the most complicated. Applicants don't just need to prove that they have been resident for five years, they also need to prove that they speak French, understand France and French culture, have assimilated and support French values.
READ ALSO Are you 'integrated' enough for French citizenship?
For this reason, application via residency usually take the longest (although there are also regional variations, more on that later).
Applications through marriage or through family ties (par déclaration) have a slightly simpler and therefore usually quicker route, since applicants have to provide less supporting evidence. Full details here.
For example, the Bouches-du-Rhône préfecture, which contains Marseille, estimated in July 2024 that applications by décret took 472 days to be processed, while those by déclaration took 332 - meaning residency applications involved 140 additional days for processing.
The quickest route of all is for people who technically have the right to be French and just require registration - this includes children born in France to non-French parents, who can apply for citizenship from the age of 13 (if they still live in France), and people born to French parents who had not got around to registering them as French citizens at the time of their birth.
Dossier
As with all French administrative tasks, applicants need to prepare a dossier of papers to support their application, with people applying through residency required to present the largest and most complicated file.
The exact documents required vary depending on personal circumstances but you're likely to have to provide a reissued copy of your birth certificate and birth/marriage/death certificates for your parents, a criminal records check, proof of financial circumstances and - if applying via residency or marriage - proof that you speak French to a decent level.
Documents not in French are likely to need a translated copy (which must be done by a certified translator) and depending on your country of origin documents may have to be apostilled.
READ MORE: French vocabulary you need to know when applying for citizenship
Any missing document or incorrect submission results in a delay as the préfecture requests more documents. Failure to provide these can result in the application being either denied or paused.
One préfecture estimated that half all dossiers it receives are incomplete.
These days it is a little easier to get the right documents - the Service Publique website has a handy tool that allows you to input your personal circumstances and then prepares a list of all the documents you will need. Be sure to take careful note of which documents require a certified translation and which, if any, must be apostilled.
Process
The process is a multi-stage one - first your dossier is examined to see that all documents are complete, legible and conform to what was requested - at this stage your application is officially 'deposé' (received). Then préfecture staff do a more detailed examination of your dossier to ensure that you fulfil all the criteria for citizenship.
If your dossier is accepted you are then invited to an in-person interview at the préfecture (or consulate if applying from outside France). At this interview you will be expected to demonstrate your knowledge of France, French culture and history and your support for French values.
If you pass the interview, your application then moves to the Interior Ministry who have the right to object to the granting of citizenship (this is very rare and is usually on security grounds).
If this stage passes smoothly you will then be granted citizenship.
Préfecture
But the biggest difference appears to be where the application is dealt with, and unfortunately for most people this is out of their hands.
If you live in France, the first half of your application is dealt with by your local préfecture - there is now a central website for applications via residency, but once the application is made online it is then passed on to the préfecture.
Timeline: How to track your French citizenship application
Applications through marriage or family ties are, for now, made directly to the préfecture (although there are plans to move them online too). If you are not in France you make the application at the French consulate of the country where you live.
It is the local authority who handles everything up to the point of the récépissé de completitude, or confirmation that all necessary documents have been submitted. This happens at approximately the same time as the interview (entretien d'assimilation).
Up until this point, processing times between préfectures vary hugely. While some préfectures do list their expected wait times (you can search this under 'démarches' with the key word 'delai de traitement') on their websites, others do not give any public estimates.
As such, there is no official league table, but it seems that Alpes-Maritime (which contains the town of Nice) is along the worst, with local officials saying they are currently dealing with applications submitted in 2019.
In the Nord département, there are also long wait times, with the préfecture estimating that people applying by décret take 24 to 30 months from the date of submission (attestation de dépôt) to the interview.
At the other end of the spectrum is Paris, where people regularly report waiting just a few months before they get their interview date.
The Deux-Sèvres département in south-western France, also estimates shorter wait periods for applications by residency, promising to inform applicants within four months of initial submission if they are missing documents. Their estimated wait-time before the interview (after the attestation de dépôt de dossier) is eight months.
For applications by marriage, the average wait time before the interview is four months following the receipt of your application (acussé de réception de dossier).
The Rhône préfecture, which includes Lyon, reports that the average wait time for those applying via residency is 514 days.
Ultimately, regional variations seem to be connected to demand and staffing.
Among the places with notably long processing times are Seine-Saint-Denis, Alpes-Maritime and Bouches-du-Rhône (containing Marseille), all of which have large immigrant populations.
They also have populations which may have more complicated applications - for example people coming from countries that don't routinely issue documentation like birth certificates in the format favoured by France, or people who have incomplete paperwork due to having fled a conflict zone.
Interior Ministry
After receiving the récépissé that all of your documents have been processed (which happens at roughly the same time you get the date for interview), your application will be passed along to SDANF, which is the branch of the interior ministry that handles citizenship acquisition.
READ MORE: Timeline: How to track your French citizenship application
At this point, there is a clear timeline of exactly how long your application should take.
For applying by marriage, the ministry has one year to inform you of their decision, though that deadline extends to two years if they object to you obtaining French nationality.
For those applying by residency, the ministry has a total of 18 months to give their response, which can be extended once by three months. For foreigners who have been living in France for at least 10 years, the maximum notification period is one year after the issuing of the récépissé.
Comments (1)