• grue@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    I worked with a French guy in Amsterdam. His parents were Portuguese, but he was born and raised in France. As far as he was concerned, he was French.

    As I understand it, that’s a French thing specifically, not just a non-USian thing. Like, if you’re a citizen of France, you’re expected to be French and assimilate into that culture, no matter whether you’re a native Parisian, you moved there from Algeria in the '60s, or you’re from some random other place and got citizenship via the French Foreign Legion. It’s a specific sort of national ideology that’s different from the American “melting pot” one.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      15 days ago

      I’ve generally heard the opposite. You can immigrate to France, get citizenship, and be as French as possible, but you will never be French.