Benefit cheats may lose nationality
Law change could give power to strip people of their acquired French nationality if they abuse social security system
FOREIGN residents in France who acquire French nationality could have it taken away from them if they commit benefit fraud.
Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux says he is considering a change to the Code de la Nationalité which would give the power to revoke a person's recently acquired nationality if they do not adhere to French values and laws.
The proposal has been drawn up after a Muslim polygamist in Nantes was charged with benefit fraud for claiming €175,000 over three years for his four wives and 15 children.
Mr Hortefeux said the law change was not in response to the one isolated incident, but a much wider societal problem. He said of the French social security system: "Today it is being abused. I will stop them."
He added: "When a foreigner acquires French nationality by marrying a French woman and, in the years that follow, he abuses the social welfare system, is it normal that he should keep his French nationality? My reply is no."
A report by the Caisse Nationale d'Allocations Familiales in April estimated that 200,000 people in France are being paid benefits to which they are not entitled, at a total cost of €800m a year. The report found the authorities had a "major problem with detecting fraud".
The social security system is excepted to record its highest-ever deficit of €26.8bn this year, up from €20.3bn in 2009.
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