A woman was denied a French passport after refusing to shake hands with high-profile French municipal officials at a formal citizenship ceremony in the city of Isere, South-Eastern France.
The Muslim Algerian, who is married to a French national, had applied for a French passport, and during a formal event "expressly refused to shake hands with the secretary-general of the prefecture and another local official," according to a case heard by France's highest court, the Conseil d'Etat (State Council).
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The court statement was published on the French government's justice website LegiFrance. Although she herself had explained her move with religious motives, the court subsequently ruled there had been no breach of the applicant’s religious freedom.
The then-prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve turned down the woman’s request for French citizenship, asserting that "her act meant that she could not be considered as integrated into the French community." The French blog Juritravail quoted lawyer Fayçal Megherbi as saying, "If a foreign citizen shows a lack of integration, the government can reject their request for French nationality, even on the day of their French citizenship reception ceremony."
Although the woman initially appealed the court’s decision, the Conseil d'Etat finally ruled that her behavior "revealed a lack of assimilation," and to top it all off, it took place "in a symbolic moment and place."
In 2016, France naturalized 120,000 people, signifying another increase in the number of nationalizations over the past years in the EU country. Roughly 21,000 of them had obtained a French passport through marriage to a French person. According to the law, one has to live in the country for the minimum of five years or be married to a French national for at least four years in order to apply for French citizenship.