The proposed constitutional amendment was passed yesterday with a narrow majority of 162 to 148 votes (with 22 lawmakers abstaining).
Former socialist prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has openly spoken out against the amendment, while Justice minister Christiane Taubira resigned in late January over her opposition to it.
Still, the proposal, which is part of a larger constitutional reform package put forward in the wake of the November 13 Paris attacks has substantial support among the French population — and was also greenlit by Nicolas Sarkozy's center-right Republican Party.
A paragraph that made the law applicable only to dual nationals born in France was eventually edited out from the proposal. But as international law forbids any country from leaving citizens stateless, it is assumed that dual nationals convicted of terror crimes will still be the main targets.
For the amendment to be fully implemented it will have to be formally approved — together with the rest of the reform — by a three fifths majority in Congress in another vote, slated for today.
Hollande's prime minister Manuel Valls told France24 that he thought the constitutional changes would be voted through and said that the menace of terrorism in France was "without doubt more serious than before November 13."
In the same session yesterday, lawmakers also decided to extend France's current state of emergency by three additional months, signalling that the country is still shaken by last year's attacks, and it is going to keep on with its hardline approach.
France is not the first country to have envisioned a legal way of removing citizens' — who have been convicted of terrorism — nationalities.
Australia's legislation, unlike France's, made it explicit that only dual nationals would be stripped of Australian citizenship if convicted — or suspected- of terrorist offenses, with the Australian attorney general saying it would apply only "in very limited circumstances."
Similar measures were also floated in the UK, where Home Secretary Theresa May suggested stripping pro-Daesh militants and preachers of their British passports. So far, though, no such legislation has been discusssed.
