Dual nationality: where do your loyalties lie?

[rickyrickygrimes]

i live in France, where as you may know the far right are making huge inroads and coming close to being elected.

one of their main focuses is dual nationality. I remember listening to a talk by a geopolitical expert some time ago, and he said the dual nationality was a nonsense because, at its heart, nationality is about which country or state would you die for, which one would you make the ultimate sacrifice for.

What do you think? We don’t really get called upon to make the ‘ultimate sacrifice’ much these days (though in Ukraine they are). Do you have dual nationality? Do you have a ‘top’ country that you favour? Which one would you choose, if you had to?

i should say that both my son’s have dual nationality, one might even have three nationalities soon (depending on what happens tomorrow 🙄). DH and I are British and have applied for French nationality (thanks Brexit).

I think its a complex one and depends on a lot of variables.

I am South African and British. I have lived here 20+ years. I have friends and family here. If both countries enforced national.servixe for 50 year old women, I would feel British and go that way right now.

Inwill always support SA in sport, over Britain.

I dont feel truly South African or British now. I am still too South African to be truly British. I am too Brotish to be truly South African.

I am British but have had a German passport since 2017. I didn't renew my UK passport in 2018. I have lived in Germany for over 30 years. If asked my nationality I usually say German. And as for "dying for my country"? Well which army would want to have me? I'm over 50 and disabled.It's also pretty unlikely that Germany will declare war on the UK.

I am a dual national, of two countries I've not lived in for decades. Lived in the UK since 2001. I wouldn't give up my nationalities, because they are what I was born with. It connects me to my parents, and I would have to give one up to become British. I do feel some ties to my father's country, and only lack a British passport due to a stupid anomaly in maternal nationality that was changed two weeks after I was born.

I think that you don’t need to think about who you would die for but instead who you would support if the two countries went to penalties in the World Cup final.

I work with a lot of people who either were not born in the UK or have parents who weren’t and it is something that we discuss sometimes.

I would not die for any country.

Britain is now my home, but I feel I must maintain my original nationality so that I can easily care for and visit family and in case I someday need an escape hatch.

Oh too hard I hope I never have to choose

Born here but grew up elsewhere but back here for half of my life

Not sure about the condition you put on it, I was more imagining giving up one passport

I have 3 passports and have lived in all 3 countries.
I feel most at home in my birth country. However for some reason I feel most affinity and allegiance to the country where I spent most of my education
al years. Not sure why.
The country I currently live in… nah.

I lived in the UK for the first 35 years of my life, Ireland for the next 12 and Portugal for the last 17. I have an Irish passport, permanent residency here and let my UK passport lapse. If I had to make a choice Ireland would be my final home.

If you had to give up your other passports/nationalities to continue living in your current country would you move?

nationality is about which country or state would you die for

Bloke right? Idiot.

Because it's like this, say I'm French, would I die for France? YES! OK, the Vichy government or the resistance? Ummmm complicated. If you could ever have asked that question, or one like it (Vietnam vs WWII, Gulf vs WWII, etc.) then you wouldn't 'die for your country'.

If either of my two nations was invaded, I'd fight for my family. They play different sports so they'd never meet in a World Cup/Olympics. Culturally I like aspects of both.

If I had to choose one nationality, it would b very hard. I have friends who have had to choose because their country doesn't allow it. I would hate to have to.

I’m British and French. I’ve lived in the UK most of my life, and perhaps feel more British (I come across as a completely plummy English lady with an Irish sounding name!) But I also very influenced by French language and culture because I was raised by French woman. My sister and half sister have lived in France most of their lives and probably feel more French, but have a British father. But we feel like a coherent family, not belonging more to one nation than another.

I guess what I’m trying to say is my sense of identity as a French or British person isn’t really about geography or national affiliation (who I’d die for or support in the football.) It’s about family ties, language and cultural practices. Each dual culture family does this in their own way.

But I do support France in the football, if only because we’ve got the better national anthem (and England in the cricket, because the French are dreadful cricketers.)

I don’t know, I chose one, the other was just luck of the draw. I’m both. But if either would make me choose, I wouldn’t choose the country that is trying to force my hand, because that’s just the top of a very slippery slide, I’d be out like a shot if I get a whiff of a far right government

For me it's probably more of a cultural thing. I live in and grew up in the UK, but spent all my holidays in my other country. My mother was the immigrant and as the one responsible for day to day parenting, I absorbed a lot of her culture. Nursery rhymes, songs, stories from childhood were from her country, not England. I also had friends in my other country. My ex told me that I seem more at ease in my other country and I do prefer the way of life there.

The Referendum crushed me. I felt completely rejected and it was very visceral for me. It felt like having a limb removed. I still feel uncomfortable, it is as though something shifted. This last election really showed how intolerant most people have now become.

Family circumstances currently mean I'm stuck here, but I have been working towards leaving the UK as soon as I am able to. I feel very fortunate that I have this option.

I was born and grew up in a country of great natural beauty, with an extremely high standard of living. I moved to the UK for uni, got married and had kids - became a citizen. For work reasons we lived in the US for many years, and I could have taken citizenship but chose not to - I never settled and the politics, gun laws and other factors ensured that I never felt at home there.

England is my home. I feel English. Despite all the shitty events of recent years it will always be more important to me than my country of birth.

I have dual UK/Australian citizenship and will always be grateful for the opportunity to do so. I came to Australia in my early 50s so it would be ludicrous to say I'm Australian in any cultural sense or how I feel. I feel English.
We didn't come to Australia with any sense of disgust or boredom in the UK, just took an opportunity.
Which team to support? England/GB/UK if they're involved, but otherwise Australia.

if I had to choose, it would be the country where my daughter lives.

I guess what I’m trying to say is my sense of identity as a French or British person isn’t really about geography or national affiliation (who I’d die for or support in the football.) It’s about family ties, language and cultural practices. Each dual culture family does this in their own way.

This resonates with me a lot. British dad, but mother and half my family are French, so even though I was brought up in England we were exposed to a lot of French food and culture, and obviously the language. DH is Irish and I'm also ethnically Jewish so our household, families and backgrounds are a lovely mix of different cultures and histories. Like you I feel my loyalty is bound to family and heritage rather than geography and I've never really thought about favouring one country over the other. In fact I probably think of my loyalty more in terms of cities than the countries as such. I've thought about moving to France several times when I was younger and sometimes wonder how life would have turned out if I had. We do have a semi plan to move there when we're older and less tied down here.

I actually personally loathe the idea of being made to feel I should, or do, have loyalty to one country. I've been asked on more than one occasion if my loyalty lies with Israel, a country I have never been to and have no family connections with. It's a major issue for French Jews in particular just now.

The election is quite worrying OP, isn't it. It's interesting how the UK has now moved back to centrist moderation, while France is favouring more extreme populism in both directions.

I have dual nationality, British and NZ. I feel British and miss Britain a lot, but I love NZ too. Last night the All Blacks played England and I wanted England to win, but had the All Blacks lost I would have been sorry.

I love both countries in different ways and would find it really hard to pick between them.

Does having dual nationality restrict your citizenship rights in the UK? In Australia, for example, dual citizens cannot become members of parliament.

I have triple nationality and have lived in all three countries. My son also has triple, and my husband double. I am most proud of my Aussie citizenship because it is my favourite country, and also because I chose it. Culturally I am Northern Irish though, rather than British or Irish. My son was born in England but feels Australian. I would happily sell my UK passport if it were legal, after Brexit it's not as good as my Irish or Aussie passports.

It’s very complicated isn’t it? To add to our mix, DH and I are Scottish, as well as British. Our children probably identify with Scotland more than France despite the fact they’ve lived here all their lives and never lived in Scotland! They have strong Scottish accents, all our families live there, and they’ve spent a lot of time there.

I think my question was more about where does dual nationality fit in with nationalism? the RN in France are proposing to prevent dual nationals from holding various civil positions in France - so potentially my sons couldn’t be teachers, civil servants, work in local government etc despite having French nationality.

Keir Starmer says this yesterday “That aspiration that so many people have, wherever they started from, to make a journey in life for themselves, for their families, their communities and ultimately for their country.”

That last phrase: my question is ‘which country’? Not so simple to answer when you have more than one.

Between us in our family we have 4 nationalities. The only one we all have in common is British, so I guess we are more British than anything else.

But frankly, if Rishi Sunak had called on us 'fighting for our country' against the arriving migrants he would have been told to go hang, as would a Le Pen government calling for some other nationalistic nonsense.

I think nationalism of all stripes is highly toxic in fact, and the main reason we hold so many passports is to have somewhere to be able to go if/when things go bad. I have lived in a country where a second passport was literally a lifesaver, and it was not that long ago that Jewish people without a second nationality were unable to leave Germany. I want to make sure we all have that option, whatever comes down the line.

When I was getting vetted for Security clearance for my job, the Aussie interviewer asked me why I hadn't renounced my other citizenships. I told her that I didn't think I had to! She checked the rules and said I was right, but other nationalities require you to renounce other citizenship. I remember a Chinese colleague telling me if he took up Aussie citizenship he would have to renounce his Chinese one, which was risky for him as it meant he could be denied a visa to visit his family back home. I think Germany also has single nationality only.

I'm British by birth and naturalised French.

I don't think I could choose. All my blood relatives except my children are British and live in the UK. I lived in the UK until my 30s. But my husband and children are French and I've been here a long time now.

When I was planning to move to France I used to worry about what happens in the future if there's a war or some other catastrophe which prevents travel or even communication between the two countries? Which country would I choose? If I had to choose between never seeing my husband again and never seeing my parents again, who would I pick? Then a few years later the border was actually closed due to Covid and it made that nightmare a little too real.

I think now the answer is a little simpler. Home is wherever my children are. At least while they are young enough to not go off wandering themselves.

I find the idea that I might never live in the UK again, that I might end up living in France for longer than I lived in the UK and eventually die here, very odd.

My husband's family are Catholics and my parents in law have their burial plots reserved in a local cemetery. My husband always assumed he would do the same. But I hate the idea of being buried and when the time comes I want my ashes scattered. A little bit of me in France, a little bit of me in England, and maybe some of me at sea.

So I cannot choose.

All I can do is cast my vote in the elections today and hope for the best. Even if tomorrow our prime minister is a 28 year old baby fascist with a huge following on TikTok who thinks I'm a mudblood and my children are half-bloods, I have to take the view that life is a never ending cycle and trust that it will come right in the end. In the 1940s France was under Nazi occupation. In the 1960s it was a founding member of what is now the EU. Things change, for the better, and for the worse, and then for the better again.

And given that the RN no longer has a policy of leaving the EU, hopefully there is a limit to how extreme a RN government could be.

Anyway, I'd better get dressed and go and cast my vote!

I'm British/Italian and feel loyalty to both although I agree the concept of dying for your country smacks of toxic masculinity. My kids are also dual but feel more Italian probably as they have always lived in Italy. Last night ds19 was supporting Switzerland in the Euros as he said if Switzerland win at least Italy were knocked out by the champions....