Getting brutish nationality for children born in france

[Nancy54]

Hi,

I am British, my partner is french and we live in France. We have two children who were born here and they have french nationality.

I was just wondering if anyone knows how I apply for British nationality for them?

I just had a quick look on the embassy website but couldn't find the info (an probably being thick)

Anyway, I'd be grateful if anyone who has done this could tell me what they did!

Thanks a lot

I don't know sorry but your thread title made me laugh

Haaaa! Opps!

Your children either have it or don't.
Whether they have it depends on how you are a British citizen.
If they are British, then if you want to prove it, just buy them passports.

Thanks.

By how do you mean if I was born in the uk? I was.

I think you want this: www.gov.uk/types-of-british-nationality/overview from the Home Office.

According to the citizenship checker (from point 2), your children will have "citizenship by descent", as you are a British citizen and born in Britain.
And then you get the links to the appropriate forms

I just called the consulate and they talked me through what I had to do. Mind you that was 8 years ago and they seem to have cut most services since then.

I seem to remember I just sent off for a british passport for the dc. I had to provide evidence that I or dh were suitable to pass on our nationality (i.e. British citizens born in the UK or naturalised) and have their picture signed by someone suitable, but it was not that complicated.

Then your children are hopefully British citizens by descent but not "other than by descent".

The only added step you'll need to take is to get a translation of their French birth certificates, if you didn't register their births with the British embassy and get those terribly expensive certificates that look like UK birth certificates but aren't (don't think they now issue them for British children born in France), which gets around the obligation to translate the French birth certificate.

Then you apply online, pay the fee (it's about £70 for a 5 year child passport, varies according to the DHL delivery fees loaded into that price), get a counter signatory, send all the docs and photos off to the UK, wait about 2 weeks and that's it you should have your British passports. I have a child passport in transit now, if it is delivered tomorrow, that will be 2 weeks

Great, thanks lweji and liara.

Yes your children are british by descent but their children won't necessarily be.

My DS was born in France at the tail end of 2013 and we went through these procedures this time last year.

PPs are right, your DCs either have British citizenship or they don't, you can't apply for nationality per se. You can however apply for proof of that nationality in the form of a passport.

If you were born before 1983 procedures are slightly easier because you don't need to provide details of your parents' births.

Also, don't try and wing it with the extrait d'acte de naissance plurilingue because the passport office won't accept it. We tried and it held the application up by about two weeks. Your local Mairie will have lists of approved certified translators.

The applications for first time child passports from outside the UK take at least six weeks. DS's took four months, but we were caught up in last year's crisis. Friends' applications took about the same length of time last winter though. In any case, leave plenty of time!

As laptopwieldingharpy says your DCs will be British citizens by descent so will not pass on citizenship to their children unless they are resident in the UK for a set amount of time before having children.

I know someone who just did a first time British passport in identical circumstances in 2 weeks from birth, through application, to delivery back to EU. She had the translation sorted before birth though!

Brilliant! I wish I had taken tips from her before I applied last year.

Yeh but the service has improved drastically from this time last year. The 2 week turnaround for the newborn was in February this year and our renewals came back today in 2 weeks. This time last year, I had to get an emergency consulate renewal for free as renewals were taking months.

Yeah, it was awful. I applied in february last year for DS's. Glad things are better this year. I am waiting for the autumn to renew DD's passport though, just in case.

Ok thanks for the advice all. I'm not in a tearing hurry. I just thought maybe I should do it before a referendum on leaving the eu!

Alteredimages your DS and my Ds must be the same age, he was born late Oct 2013.