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Jackie: For this week's podcastsinenglish.com, we're talking about nationality. With me is Gareth, hi Gareth.
Gareth: Hi, Jackie.
Jackie: Gareth, you're British.
Gareth: Yes. But I also have French nationality.
Jackie: Wh... Why have you got French nationality?
Gareth: Well, because I came... I went to live in France in 1984.
Jackie: So some time ago.
Gareth: Yeah. And I've been living in France for more than half my life now, um... and it's important to me because that that's the country that I actually feel is my home, strangely enough.
Jackie: No... no plans to return to the UK?
Gareth: No. No, no, I don't intend to go back to the UK because I've got nothing in the UK. Um... you know my home life is in France. I married in France, I've got two children. Nicky of course, my wife, is English but um... still France is our home.
Jackie: Still, why become a French national though?
Gareth: Well, because it was important to me living in France and paying my taxes in France that I also vote in France.
Jackie: Right
Gareth: That was... that is important, I mean having the right to vote might seem unimportant to many people but when you don't have the right to vote, I mean you are paying your taxes, I mean you do think that it's your home um... it is quite um...
Jackie: So it is allowing you to function as a... as a full citizen [of that country].
Gareth: As a French citizen. Yes, yes.
Jackie: Right, right.
Gareth: But there is also the big issue for me because both my children were born in France and the British Nationality Act which was passed in 1981 which means that um... if other countries had the same legislation as the UK that it's possible that my grandchildren could be stateless.
Jackie: It.... it used to be the case that if you were born in Britain, you were automatically a British citizen.
Gareth: Yes
Jackie: That is no longer the case.
Gareth: No
Jackie: So, in France just because you are born in France you are not automatically a French citizen either.
Gareth: No. Er... you know, Nicky and I are English, so our children automatically have the right to British nationality but because of the British Nationality Act, they can't necessarily transfer or pass on that nationality to their children.
Jackie: To their children
Gareth: It depends on many other things. And also in France, the fact that um... Emily and Felix were born in France doesn't mean to say that they they automatically have the right to be French nationals. For Emily, if she married somebody, let's say she goes off to South Africa, she meets someone in South Africa, she gets married to a South African they then leave and go and live in Canada, for example, and they have a child and that child is born in Canada, it didn't have the right to acquire nationality just by being born there, that would be a stateless child. And that, I mean, that is very important. Could be very important.
Jackie: Right, right. So you mentioned, you mentioned also, this fact that you probably wouldn't be going back to the UK but you haven't shrugged off your Britishness, have you?
Gareth: No, no. I'm still... I still consider myself to be British. I don't have a French passport, I have a British passport and a French ID card. I am a Brit, so to... for me to travel under a French passport I wouldn't, I don't feel French.
Jackie: Right
Gareth: So I'm doing it for other reasons which is, you know, beyond pure, you know, nationalities, to do with....
Jackie: Right
Gareth: ...The fact that I want to be able to live in France, I want to, you know, to feel that's my home, it is my home and I also want to solve this problem for my children and my grandchildren.
Jackie: Right, right. Well, Gareth thank you very much, that's really interesting. I'm wondering whether there are any listeners who have emigrated to another country who feel that they haven't really left behind their sense of their original nationality and who also worry about whether their children will be stateless. We'd love to hear from you. Thank you, Gareth.
Gareth: Thank you, Jackie.
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