(Paris) The highest administrative court in France has upheld the decision to deny a French passport to an Algerian Muslim who refused to shake hands with officials during her citizenship ceremony.
In 2016 the women was applying for French citizenship
refused to shake hands with a senior official presiding over the citizenship
ceremony as well as with a local politician. That act saw her bid to become
French (and all the rights and benefits that come with it) thrown out of the
window. She appealed calling it an “abuse of power” and that appeal has also
been thrown out of the window.
The government said that her behaviour showed she was “not
assimilated into the French community”, one of the reasons it could invoke
under the civil code to deny citizenship for the spouse of a French national.
I’m all for people being different and having different
ways, but when it impacts on the very fabric of society promoting and leading
to religion taking precedent over the laws of the land which afford Liberté,
égalité, fraternité to all then, I cannot understand why so many people who
subscribe to a polarised religious way of life would want to become French in
the first place. It would benefit us all if these people explained why?
