![4850902371_17b0a88765_z[1][1]_0.jpg](https://cdn2.opendemocracy.net/media/original_images/4850902371_17b0a88765_z11_0_s4fOdOb.jpg)
Paris terrace cafe, July, 2014. Flickr/ zoetnet. Some rights reserved.Between November 2015 and March 2016, France went through a raging debate about denaturalisation (déchéance de nationalité). Denaturalisation is when the state strips, by means of a ministerial decree, a citizen of his or her nationality because that individual is considered a fundamental threat to the nation.
After the terrorist attack in Paris on 13 November 2015, President François Hollande promised that he would seek to include denaturalisation measures into the French Constitution. His proposition expressed that all French nationals convicted of undermining the fundamental interests of the nation or for an act of terrorism should be denaturalised, provided that denaturalisation would not lead to statelessness (Speech before Congress on 16 November 2015). Following on the President’s proposition, it was for the National Assembly and the Senate to debate and decide whether and how this plan could be put forward.
The potential insertion of denaturalisation into the French Constitution raised important questions, such as: if, in order to prevent statelessness, denaturalisation were only to apply to citizens with dual nationality, how does one reconcile denaturalisation measures with one of the most fundamental principles of democracies, i.e. the principle of equality before the law? But also: would denaturalisation be effective to combat terrorism? And would it indeed only have effect on those targeted? What does denaturalisation mean for the rest of the community? The scope of the political disagreements on the topic is best exemplified by Christiane Taubira’s resignation from her position as Minister of Justice 27 January 2016, which she presented as the expression of her resistance to the government’s plan.
