The far-right National Rally’s pledge to bar dual nationals from certain state jobs in France has been criticised by the left and centrists who say it is a taste of broader discrimination that could be implemented if the party comes to power in snap elections, reports The Guardian.
Jordan Bardella, who aims to become prime minister if the party wins an absolute majority in parliament on 7 July, announced this week that people with dual nationality would be excluded from “the most strategic posts of state”, which would be reserved for French citizens. In a proposal that rang alarm bells, he said it would apply to strategic security and defence positions.
Marine Le Pen, who will run for president for the anti-immigration party National Rally (RN) in 2027, said on Tuesday it was “really only a handful of jobs” in “sensitive strategic posts”. She said there would be a list published that could be regularly amended according to “geopolitical problems”.
The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, told Europe 1 radio that sensitive jobs in France were already vetted in a number of ways and this was unnecessary and amounted to “dividing the nation”. He said: “I don’t like this way of filtering the French”. He said it would discredit “3 million French-Americans, French-Algerians, French-Portuguese, French Moroccans …”.
The left said that the symbolic measure showed an intention to sort people by nationality, background or culture.