Smart action by the French government. France is not necessarily the most attractive country for medical workers and doctors in terms of income so being grateful for their support and giving them the citizenship is a smart thing to do when France needs more people doing those job.
This has nothing to do with doctors... medical workers are a small minority of the people being granted citizenship, a lot of these were street cleaners, caretakers, grocery store employees...
They just took a bunch of essential workers who would have requested citizenship otherwise and lowered the legal stay requirement from 5 to 2 years for them.
This sounds kinda creepy, but I don't think it is.
To be part of a society is to work together, if you've shown to be willing to go the extra mile for your fellow citizens, it's a good sign of being a good society member.
If French society is anything like Danish society, migrants from certain regions will use more in Government services than they will contribute in taxes:
People from certain non-western countries have bigger disadvantages in respect with the language, education, either lack of, or degrees not being recognized, and financial means.
This has nothing to do with those people's culture or willingness to work or something like that. If a German immigrant had the same disadvantages, he would struggle just as much.
Furthermore, the point is moot anyways, because the economical value of a citizen goes beyond simply tax-payments minus benefits-received. These people are also customers that local businesses depend on, and any money spent on benefits will mostly directly flow back into the local economy.
Another important point is that these disadvantages disappear over the generations.
Another VERY important fact is that immigrants actually save us from the massive costs of an increasingly 'grey' society (due to low birth rate).
I'm not going to put every reason here how immigrants provide benefits. But I hope it's clear that there's a little bit more involved with determining economic impact than just tax minus benefits.
Marseille has been run down by drug trafficking and decades of neglect by the French state not immigrants. In a way it has to do with immigration In that the reason Marseille was so neglected and poor is because it houses a large part of the Algerian diaspora which came after France lost its last colonial war something the French government would rather forget than address.
they contribute to the system so they should be entitled to reap the benefits regardless of citizenship status. Your argument could be said for the unproductives natives as well, who are a burden on society
Legally, the government has to reply within 18 months after your application, according to the page about Naturalisation on service-public.fr, an official website (idk if I may post links)
In some cities like Lyon, you can indeed wait 1+ year for the process.
Informally, the Administration / "Préfectures" are infamous for being slow, and requests are processed in each administrative division, so you'd rather not be in a city where there are a lot of applicants.
I mean, anyway, being naturalised here happens when you are in a stable situation, and is very symbolic in that case, so there is no rush.
If you live in France, you are welcome to be in here, you can vote for local elections if you're from the EU, you pay taxes or not according to your income, like anyone else, you can access the full social security system and other public services,...
I understand that being French is a stateless concept about living in here and sharing the moment, and it's not just a legal status ; so it makes sense if it takes time, but it arrives eventually.
Depends how good or useless your existing passport is. Travelling as a French national is a lot easier than travelling as an Algerian or Lebanese national. If you’re a Canadian or USian, it’s largely meh to get your French citizenship to travel.
It might be different now. I had read up to 2 years. There is a language requirement, but there used to be no test requirement, so the interview was to at least evaluate that.
Now that they require test results, there’s an added cost, but one less thing to evaluate directly in the citizenship process, so maybe they’ll do away with the interview entirely.
