The debates surrounding the bill organizing the social and political inclusion of the children of migrants born and educated in Greece sounds all too familiar to a French observer. Indeed, they seem to repeat an attempt at reformulating the politics of citizenship that was made in France at the turn of the 1980’s and the beginning of the 1990’s.  Despite the major differences in these two cases (a long history of immigration policies in France against a rather short one in the Greek case, different models of citizenship and inclusion and a postcolonial history that has heavily influenced political responses to immigration in France), one can only be struck by the similarities between the recent Greek bill and the reformulation of citizenship for migrants’ children that was elaborated between 1988 and the mid-nineties in France. Hence, a retrospective look at the French debates might help make sense of the Greek case and of the potential consequences of this new policy.
In the 1980s the issue on national identity crystallized in France around a debate on the frontiers of the national community: who was to become a member and who was not. Whereas before issues of economic and social integration had been at the heart of the government’s policies concerning immigrants, the end of the 1980s witnessed a shift towards a more abstract vision of national identity and integration. Immigrants were asked to conform to national values and to embody a national identity rather than just participating in social and economic activities. The notion that children of migrants should adhere voluntarily to French values, rather than get automatically French citizenship at 18 years old was one of the main results of this debate. However, this reformulation of the conditions of belonging to the nation was heavily influenced by two historical factors: the issue of double nationality for Algerians born in France, and the rise of the extreme wing vote .
Children of migrants from Algeria born in France had Algerian nationality, and should have gotten French nationality while reaching 18 years old. However, their loyalty was deemed ambivalent. The French power elite considered that they could not be loyal to both countries and that a reform of the French jus soli, that used to guarantee the granting of French nationality to those who were born and lived in France, had to be reformed. Whereas the loyalty of other citizens with double nationality had never been questioned, let along lead to a reform of French citizenship, the question of French-Algerians transformed the ways in which citizenship could be acquire by foreigners.  It is easy to see retrospectively that what was at stake was a return of postcolonial margins into the center of the French nation, an uneasy return that triggered anxieties about the content of national identity and xenophobic tensions marked by the rise of the extreme right.
The legacy of this debate is twofold. On the one hand, the jus soli was amended (and not eliminated as the Greek bill proposes) so that children of migrants born in France have now to ask for their French citizenship at 18, rather than obtaining it automatically. On the other hand, so much public discussion on the imaginary borders of the nation and on the values supposedly embedded in French nationhood have bolstered, rather than settled, anxieties about the national body politics and its need for cultural and ethnic homogeneity to properly function. The reform of citizenship rules was supposed to calm down the claims in favor of an ethnic vision of the nation coming from the extreme right wing electorate, but it rather compromised with them strengthening the notion that Muslims are not naturally part of the national community. What was at stake was therefore the boundaries of the imaginary national community, and important element of the process of social integration as one must hope and believe his/her identity will be recognized and accepted by the national community he/she has been sharing the fate since he/she was born. This historical process might make the Greek policy-makers reflects upon the long-term consequences of the current reform of access to Greek citizenship.