Are you a U.S Citizen looking to live in France ?

[FrenchLover]

Hi,

I am a French citizen living in New York.
I met several Americans who would like to live in France.

Most of them told me about the tough immigrations laws that I did not know.
Most also mentioned marriage as a solution towards the permanent residency.

Is marriage the only way for an American to become French citizen?

Please comment your experience and your interest.

[Bevdeforges]

You rarely have any reason to know the immigration laws of your own country - unless you marry a foreigner or have some other personal reason to get involved with someone trying to get a visa. (It's much the same for most Americans, who have no idea of the barriers to immigration for those wishing to live in the US.)

Marriage is one of the easier routes to getting either a visa or French citizenship. If you read on the Service Public website, you'll see that a spouse visa is about the only visa a consulate can't refuse (as long as the applicant meets all the requirements and is not committing fraud in their application). Almost any other sort of visa can be rejected for "just cause" (i.e. "just cause" the consulate doesn't want to grant it).

But there are several other routes an American can take to become a French citizen. Take a look here for a better idea: Acquisition de la nationalité française - Service-public.fr

Cheers,
Bev

[AmandaUCSC]

Has there been a change in the "Réduction de stage" under the conditions de remplir? I ask because I looked at this a year or two ago via a different website and it implied that you could have time reduced if you had previously lived in France and knew the language. This is partially a personal question, as I'm a U.S. citizen and have considered moving to France permanently. I spent more than four years there a child (formative years of ~8-13 years old) in which I more or less gained fluency that has never left. (I figured that out after a nearly 9-year period of absence in the language and then spent two summers in Toulouse a few years back with a (native French) friend and his family and it all came back within 1-2 weeks.)

One of the appealing reasons to go to France is that I thought it had a reduction in time to citizenship for the reasons noted above. My husband is EU (from Spain) and we're currently living in Berlin, but we're both considering heading to France if his work contract isn't renewed in three years. I'd finishing a PhD (U.S.) and my German is improving, but job prospects are slim without fluency and getting citizenship would be a freaking nightmare here.

[Bevdeforges]

The French requirements for naturalization are actually fairly straightforward. The only tricky bit can be "proving" your assimilation into the culture.

The only reductions in the residency requirement that I'm aware of are in the case of marriage (i.e. 4 years instead of 5 if you're resident in France while married to a French citizen) and the student option (i.e. residency reduced to 2 years of pursuing a "tertiary diploma" at a French university - the trick being that you have to be able to remain legally in France during the year in which it takes to process your application). OK, there is also service in the French Foreign Legion and a couple other things like this.

The language requirement has recently be formalized - so you have to prove your language ability by presenting a test certificate at a particular level of the DELF tests.

This is the official word on requirements for taking French nationality by naturalization: Naturalisation : conditions à remplir - Service-public.fr Maybe it will give you some ideas.
Cheers,
Bev

[Pysov]

Yup for us we got married. Or I would have had to go back home to the good old USA. I think i have 2 more carte de sejour renewals before I have residency, but I have been too busy with my 4 hour daily commute to Paris to work (2 aller, 2 reteur) to keep up on the laws. So I may have it wrong.