French Court Denies Citizenship to Woman Married to Bigamist

According to the decision of the Court of Cassation, in order to become French through marriage, one of the two spouses must not be in a situation of bigamy.

This is apparently the case for this Moroccan woman, who had applied to become French through her marriage to a Frenchman. But her husband, who was also originally from Morocco, had married her in France without having yet broken a previous marriage concluded in Morocco. He was therefore in a situation of bigamy.

For the acquisition of nationality by a spouse, the law requires that "the community of both emotional and material life has not ceased between the spouses since the marriage," the Court specified, according to which there is no community of emotional life between the spouses as long as one is married twice.

Justifying its decision, the prosecution stated that the spouses are obliged to a community of life upon their marriage and that it is an "element of the French monogamous conception of marriage."