French Press Starts Drive to Open Citizenship Lists to Aliens

Newspapers urged the Government today to make it possible for more aliens to acquire French citizenship. Taking up a fight long waged by Jewish and non-Jewish organizations they cited the inconsistency of the Government’s action in encouraging an increased birthrate and at the same time making it difficult for many able-bodied aliens to obtain naturalization.

To enable the Government to put into effect its recent decree promising monetary advantages to larger families, the newspapers point out, French taxpayers will have to contribute yearly about $50,000,000.

With a population of little more than 40,000,000, such a tax is costly acknowledgement for the average Frenchman of the pressing need to increase the population, and the papers demand to know, therefore, why the Government is not taking advantage of the naturalization of aliens, which would involve no expenditures and would even aid the Government treasury.

Some of the higher French authorities explain that any obstacles placed in the way of aliens becoming citizens represent public pressure, but the newspapers contend that public opinion should be educated in this respect as it is certain that even under the new decree large families are likely to be rare in France for some time.

This view is supported by the representatives of Jewish and non-Jewish organizations interested in securing a normal status for aliens similar to that prevailing in the United States. A special committee is drafting naturalization regulations to be submitted to the Government for acceptance.

While under existing regulations, one can apply for citizenship after three years in France, this application need not be accepted by the Government. Grant of citizenship depends chiefly on the applicant’s social position or on his having French-born children. Tens of thousands of applications are still not acted upon despite the fact that many of them have been submitted over five or even ten years ago.