ECHR Upholds France’s Decision to Strip Terrorists of Citizenship

These childhood friends from working-class neighborhoods in the Yvelines, who became French between 1991 and 2001, had been sentenced in 2007 to six to eight years in prison for "participation in a criminal association with a view to preparing a terrorist act." They were accused of their links with the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, responsible for the May 16, 2003 attacks in Casablanca that killed 45 people, including three French, and left about a hundred injured. They were released in 2009 and 2010.

In October 2015, France had stripped them of their French nationality. The ECHR judges had noted at the end of June, in the first instance, that "the applicants have filed applications for private and family life residence permits and have receipts allowing them to live in France." "It follows that the deprivation of nationality affecting the applicants does not constitute an interference in the exercise of their right to respect for their family life," they added, noting that they all have a second nationality and have therefore not become stateless.

The judges note that the applicants’ ability to remain in France is "fragile." However, the French authorities have not taken "any removal measures," they assure. "Terrorist violence in itself constitutes a serious threat to human rights," the Court stressed, stating that it understood the decision of the French authorities to show increased firmness towards people convicted of a crime or offense constituting an act of terrorism after the 2015 attacks.

In the eyes of the applicants’ lawyer, William Bourdon, the five men are "models of integration." "The children are in school, most of them work, the family homes are integrated, which should prevent their expulsion," he said.