Le droit du sol

Le droit du sol, comme le droit du sang ou la naturalisation, constitue un moyen d'accéder à la nationalité française. Il permet à un enfant né en France de parents étrangers de se voir attribuer la nationalité française à ses 18 ans, de façon automatique.

Transl: Right by place of birth, like right by descent or naturalisation, is a means of acquiring French nationality. It allows children born in France to foreign parents to automatically acquire French nationality when they turn 18. 

This used to be the norm until recently: it was desirable to acquire citizens to a) replace the scourging losses of infant mortality b) be productive workers b) do their national service in the army c) pay taxes to support pensioners . . . and all the other drains on the exchequer. My pal Pepe did a two year post-doc in Edinburgh in the 1970s and one of his boys was born during that time so had dual UK and Spanish citizenship. In 1983, the Brits tightened up their citizenship regs, so that you could only claim your British passport if one of your parents was, in their turn British.

In Ireland the story has been dynamic since the foundation of the state. In 1999, as part of the pragmatics of the Good Friday Agreement, and the passing of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution [94% approval rating!], all people born on the 32 county island of Ireland were entitled to a Green passport. With the turn of the century certain pols started raising a boogey-man of heavily pregnant Nigerians delivering their baby in the National Maternity Hospital and so acquiring at least a right to remain. That loophole was closed in 2004 by 27th "racist" Amendment to the Constitution [79% approval rating!] limiting citizenship to infants born to already Irish parent(s) - like the post-1983 Brits.

Mayotte is in the news in France over le droit du sol, because, like St. Pierre et Miquelon [whc prev], and Réunion [prev] these archipelagos are départements et régions d'outre-mer with the same rights, privs and representation in Paris as metropolitan departments like Lot-et-Garrone, Seine-maritime, Marne etc. x95.

Through the 1960s France had been divesting itself of her African colonies starting with Algeria after the disastrous civil war which formed the back-drop in The Day of The Jackal. 1 million pied-noirs re-patriated themselves to metropolitan France after 1962.  The tiny Comoros islands halfway between Mozambique and Madagascar were comparatively late to the independence table but a plebicite was carried out in December 1974 which yielded a peculiar result. The 3 Northern islands of the archipelago voted overwhelmingly for independence asap while Mayotte voted au contraire:

Island	For	Against	Turnout
Anjouan	100%	0.7‰	96%
Gd Comore	100%	0.2‰	94%
Mayotte	37%	63%	78%
Mohéli	100%	0.8‰	95%

You can see how it would piss off the majority if Mayotte was allowed to self-determine itself into staying French. Where would such "balkanisation" [the term used by the Comoros government in waiting] end? What if M. Passable and Mme Hassani in Pangadjou want to embrace their inner French but their neighbours don't? Nobody wants to finish up like Baarle. Nevertheless, Mayotte was allowed to secede from the union. Subsequent referendums in 2001 (74% Yes)  and 2009 (95% Yes) firmed up the support for the belief that  Mayotte is French .

So here we are. Mayotte is performatively emphatically French like Normandie or Provence and le droit du sol applies. While the government elite of Comoros wants to be an independent nation, many of the plain people of Anjouan fancy a go at the bright lights and opportunities of Paris or Marseille. If they can make the 80km sea crossing to Mayotte they feel they are halfway to the promised land. What to do? The Left want to suck up the anomaly and allow Mayotte to maintain parity of esteem droits metropolitan France. The Right want to use this edge case to drive a wedge between old French whose people have always come from France and new French people, born in France but whose parents or grandparents were born abroad - whether previous colonies or not. Of course Old French are white and 'christian' even if they never go to mass; while New French are from Portugal [Paris is the city with the second largest population of ethnic Portuguese!], Papeete, or tend to pray five times a day.

What the actual french have to say.