Ly 60e anniversary of the Élysée Treaty will give rise to justified celebrations and festivities: the Franco-German relationship – whether it is called “French-German Franco-French couple” or “French-German motor” − is an extremely rare historical example of reconciliation between two peoples, if not brothers, at least cousins, often enemies, who have become friends.
The leaders who will meet for these celebrations have many concerns in mind, share common anxieties and often similar, sometimes identical positions. We imagine that the menu of discussions will include the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis, relations with the United States and with China and, in general, all current strategic issues.
We can however regret that the agenda of these discussions will certainly ignore a question which is not of a strategic order but rather concerns a civic dimension, of daily cohabitation: it is the status of mixed Franco-German couples . In a Franco-German couple, each partner retains their nationality.
Each can also apply for the nationality of the other, and if he has lived long enough in the territory of the latter he can, like any foreigner, apply for naturalization which will be studied according to his length of residence, its resources and its degree of integration and assimilation. However, acquiring the nationality of the partner is not automatic. This state of affairs can create very unfortunate difficulties in the event of dissension in the couple.
Become a reference in European law
For example, custody of a child will preferably be given to the one of the two partners who has the nationality of the country of residence of the couple, which creates a bias in the assessment that judges can make of the interest of the child to reside with either parent. A natural and prospective solution would be to systematically grant both spouses dual nationality.
Each of them would be considered a national and would have the same rights regardless of the country of residence, France or Germany. This development could serve, as is often the case with joint decisions taken by France and Germany, as a reference for European law.
One could imagine that this notion of a binational couple would extend to all national unions in Europe, and even that in the long term, European citizenship would be enriched with new rights which would make the notion of binationality obsolete by allowing all citizens of the Union to unite with any other citizen of the Union with the same rights as any citizen of the couple’s country of residence. European citizenship would take on its full meaning and Europe would gain a broader democratic base.
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