{"id":13668,"date":"2024-01-07T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-07T01:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/07\/francophone-belgian-couple-caught-in-bureaucratic-struggle-to-prove-they-speak-french\/"},"modified":"2024-01-07T01:05:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-07T01:05:00","slug":"francophone-belgian-couple-caught-in-bureaucratic-struggle-to-prove-they-speak-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/07\/francophone-belgian-couple-caught-in-bureaucratic-struggle-to-prove-they-speak-french\/","title":{"rendered":"Francophone Belgian couple caught in bureaucratic struggle\u00a0to prove they speak French"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple from the French-speaking part of Belgium wanted to become\u00a0naturalized <\/strong>French\u00a0citizens\u00a0but\u00a0found themselves with\u00a0the most French of problems\u00a0\u2013 a bureaucratic struggle to prove\u00a0they\u00a0speak\u00a0their mother tongue. <\/p>\n

The documents they provided to their local prefecture were deemed insufficient to demonstrate that they speak French. <\/p>\n

He has been living in the southern French department of Dr\u00f4me for 24 years and his wife Martine for nine. After having lived in the country for so long, they felt like the time had come for them to become French. <\/p>\n

But their path of becoming\u00a0naturalized\u00a0ran into a most unlikely obstacle \u2013 they can\u2019t prove that they speak French. <\/p>\n

They submitted their degrees from French-speaking universities and\u00a0were\u00a0told these\u00a0could not\u00a0prove that they speak B1-level French, intermediate level under the current European Union system. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see that I\u2019m talking to you [in French] in a correct way, but unfortunately a priori that\u2019s not enough for our administration,\u201d Lenoir said. <\/p>\n

Yet the local prefecture also has a strong case \u2013 they were simply following the law. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is totally inaccurate to state that the Lenoirs\u2019 application for naturalization was rejected for \u2018lack of knowledge of the French language,\u2019\u201d the Dr\u00f4me government office said in a statement published Thursday. <\/p>\n

Instead, the reason why Lenoir and his wife failed to obtain French citizenship was because they provided documents \u201cthat do not comply\u201d with what\u00a0was\u00a0required by French law. <\/p>\n

Unlike\u00a0the\u00a0<\/strong>United States or Canada, who recognize university degrees earned in other Anglo-Saxon countries, France doesn\u2019t recognize university degrees earned in other francophone countries as a way of proving language proficiency. <\/p>\n

There are basically two ways of proving one\u2019s proficiency in French according to the current French nationality law \u2013 earn a middle school degree or above in France or pass a language exam, either conducted by other European countries or a\u00a0take an official TCF\/ TEF exam. <\/p>\n

For the latter, the exam result must be no older than two years. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is therefore necessary for applicants to provide valid documents for their applications to be in proper shape,\u201d the local government statement said. <\/p>\n

But for Vincent Lenoir, the reality is more complicated than simply taking another exam. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can only take this exam in January and get the result in March, while our appeal to the government\u2019s appeal is only valid for two months. So by the time we get the result it will be useless,\u201d he told BFMTV, meaning they will have restart the whole process all over again. <\/p>\n

Ironically, if a French person wants to become Belgian, his or her university degree earned in France will be sufficient to prove language proficiency in French, one of the three national languages of Belgium. <\/p>\n

But anyone who\u00a0has\u00a0lived\u00a0in France\u00a0will\u00a0agree that for one person to go to the local government for an administrative task only to be told that one didn\u2019t bring the right type of document is probably the most French interaction one can ever have. <\/p>\n

Additional reporting from Maya Szaniecki.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple from the French-speaking part of Belgium wanted to become\u00a0naturalized French\u00a0citizens\u00a0but\u00a0found themselves with\u00a0the most French of problems\u00a0\u2013 a bureaucratic struggle to prove\u00a0they\u00a0speak\u00a0their mother tongue. The documents they provided to their local prefecture were deemed insufficient to demonstrate that they speak French. He has been living in the southern French department of Dr\u00f4me for 24 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13669,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}