France’s new tougher rules on French citizenship have seen an increasing number of people rejected on economic grounds – including young people who have spent almost their entire life in France. We spoke to some of those affected.
In May 2025 the then-Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau sent out a memo to French préfectures – and this five-page document has had a devastating impact on the lives of many foreigners in France who had dreamed of one day becoming French.
The insistence on the strict application of economic rules – and the removal of discretion on the part of local préfectures – mean that almost anyone who retired to France will now have their citizenship application refused on the grounds that they do not have adequate income.
The strict adherence to several years of stable income also means that many young people who moved to France with their parents as small children are also being refused – despite growing up here, speaking fluent French and being completely integrated into French life.
READ ALSO: What new French citizenship rules mean for children raised in France✎
Among those affected is a 23-year-old woman working as a pâtissière in the Chamonix Valley, who has lived in France since she was four and was recently rejected for citizenship on economic grounds.
Several people quoted in this article requested anonymity, worried that speaking to the press might affect ongoing or future citizenship applications or appeals, we were happy to comply with this request.
She told The Local: “I was really upset to be rejected – to me a French passport is not just a piece of paper, it’s feeling that I belong in this country that I have lived in since I was four, it’s being able to vote and just feeling completely part of France.”
Moving to France with her British family at the age of four, she completed all her schooling in France, followed by professional training as a pâtissière. She is now bilingual and visits the UK only occasionally.
She said: “I applied for citizenship in 2023 and then in August 2025 I had the interview at the préfecture – it went really well, the lady only asked me a few questions and she seemed completely satisfied with my situation.
“Then I got the email telling me that I had been rejected on economic grounds, and I was so shocked, it just made no sense to me.”
Since qualifying, she has worked as a pâtissière on both permanent (CDI) and temporary (CDD) contracts – a common situation for young people, but especially in the Alps, where many jobs are seasonal.
She said: “I have regular work at a restaurant during the ski season and a few weeks in the summer but it’s not year-round, which is really common here. But I still earn enough to support myself financially, I’m not asking for money.
“I feel that I’m very integrated into French life, most of my friends are French, my boyfriend is French and his family have taught me a lot about the local traditions here – I usually think in French, sometimes it’s easier, especially for counting and things like that.
“I just feel that it’s so unfair to refuse someone based on having a CDD contract.”
Her mother Sara, who runs her own business in the Chamonix valley, told The Local: “She was beside herself when she got the decision, so upset at what she feels is a rejection of her identity.
“We moved to France when she was four, she went through the French schooling system and now she thinks of herself as French – her French is totally fluent, all her friends are French, her boyfriend is French, she hardly even goes back to the UK, doesn’t really feel much connection with it because her whole life is here.
“When she got the email telling her that she had been refused, she burst into tears, she was beside herself, she just couldn’t understand it because she has always thought of herself as French.
“It seems so unfair and it means so much to her.
“She has put in an appeal but we’re not very hopeful of it succeeding.
“She has a residency card so there’s no problem with her staying here, but not being French has affected her work – when she started her apprenticeship, there was a lot of confusion about the fact that she wasn’t French, the course administrators didn’t really know what to do and there was some question about whether she could do it.
“That was the moment when she realised that having a UK passport was a disadvantage, at school she had never thought about it and she always saw herself as the same as everyone else.”
They are far from the only family in this situation, The Local recently reported on the case of Archie Morrissey, also 23, who was refused French citizenship on economic grounds, despite earning €1,600 a month, because he could not prove the required years of stable income.
Living in France since he was three years old, Archie has seen his dream of joining the fire service in Marseille crushed, since French citizenship is required to join.
Readers of The Local have also shared their stories, one Occitanie-resident parent of a 20-year-old who has lived in France since she was three-and-a-half told The Local that her daughter’s application had been rejected for economic reasons in the summer of 2025.
She said: “I am annoyed, frustrated and wondering how much more French a child who has grown up in France, completed her brevet and bac and is studying literature at a French university can be?”
One mum of a 17-year-old who has lived in France since she was three said they have already decided to postpone her application until she can fulfil the income requirements.
She said: “While citizenship is not a right, it seems strange to give a young person a sense of rejection from the country that they have grown up in. Of course, their parents’ validity should be questioned, but the child?”
Joanna in Paris also has a teenage daughter who has lived in Paris since she was two.
She said: “She has been through the French school system, is completely bilingual and feels more French than British. She wants to continue to live here and now worries that she’ll not be allowed to.
“I feel this is a really unfair and blinkered approach which hurts the young people who have spent most of their lives in this otherwise wonderful country!”
Another Paris parent has helped her 17-year-old daughter with the submission of her citizenship application and is waiting for a decision from the préfecture.
She told The Local: “We feel frustrated because she meets all of the other requirements (language level, civics test etc) and it is a valid option to mark on the application – to start that process at 17, to be dependent on parents etc. Why have this as an option when it will be rejected due to income? Why are retired people and youth treated the same?
“I feel like France is hurting itself with these strict and confusing rules, barring the next generation who have grown up in its system from legally becoming part of it.”
The other group affected by the strict economic requirements are pensioners, who are also routinely being turned down for French citizenship on economic grounds since the memo.
In their case, it is the insistence on ‘French-sourced’ income that is the problem, since people who retire and then move to France usually have the majority of their income from a foreign pension.
READ ALSO: What counts as ‘French income’ when it comes to citizenship?✎
The strict requirements means that préfecture staff are no longer able to look at the whole application, but must automatically reject people without a French-sourced income, despite them having a secure and stable income.
One of those affected is Michael Usherwood, 81, a retired landscape architect from the UK.
He told The Local: “I fell in love with France as a teenager and moving here was a lifelong project. We came here for family holidays and then as an adult, I got into mountaineering, so spent all my holidays in France, either at the beach or in the mountains.
“In 2001 we bought an apartment in Savoie, in the French Alps, and used it as a holiday home and then in 2008 I was able to retire and that’s when we made the move to France – my wife and I, our seven-year-old son and my mother-in-law and father-in-law all moved to Gers in south-west France. My son grew up here – he’s totally bilingual now and works in Toulouse.
“I finally applied for French citizenship in June 2024 but that was the end of a long process to get there – learning French, doing French classes and the French language exam, which I had to take twice – it’s a complicated process getting all the documents together and expensive too.
“Just before Christmas 2025 I got a letter asking for more information, including my latest tax declaration, and then in February 2026 I got the rejection letter, based on financial grounds because my income is not French, it’s pension income from the UK.
“I have an adequate income, I’m not rich but I have enough and I feel that I am well integrated – but it seems that I just don’t tick the boxes.
“I feel irritated, seriously irritated, with the faceless bureaucrats who have decided that it’s about ticking boxes, not about who you want to welcome to your country.
“It hasn’t changed my feelings about France, I still feel perfectly welcome in our village and well integrated, my irritation is not with the French people, but I do feel that this is an injustice.
“France is where we want to spend the rest of our lives – my father-in-law is buried here – so I will remain, but I won’t be French.”
