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# A Back-up Nationality. Transmission and Strategic Use of Dual Nationality in the Lille and Geneva Border Spaces

Une nationalité d'appoint. Transmissions et usages stratégiques de la double nationalité dans les espaces frontaliers lillois et genevois

Ciudadanía de apoyo. Transmisiones y usos estratégicos de la doble nacionalidad en las zonas fronterizas de Lille y Ginebra

Garance Clément

Translator: Alexandra Poméon O'Neill and Katherine Booth

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OpenEdition
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**Electronic version**

URL: https://journals.openedition.org/remi/28305

DOI: 10.4000/15ar8

ISSN: 1777-5418

**This article is a translation of:**

Une nationalité d'appoint. Transmissions et usages stratégiques de la double nationalité dans les espaces frontaliers lillois et genevois - URL : https://journals.openedition.org/remi/23011 [fr]

**Publisher**

Université de Poitiers

**Printed version**

Date of publication: October 1, 2023

ISBN: 978-23-81940-24-3

ISSN: 0765-0752

**Electronic reference**

Garance Clément, "A Back-up Nationality. Transmission and Strategic Use of Dual Nationality in the Lille and Geneva Border Spaces", *Revue européenne des migrations internationales* [Online], vol. 39 - n°2 et 3 | 2023, Online since 01 November 2025, connection on 09 December 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/remi/28305 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/15ar8

This text was automatically generated on December 9, 2025.

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# A Back-up Nationality. Transmission and Strategic Use of Dual Nationality in the Lille and Geneva Border Spaces

Une nationalité d'appoint. Transmissions et usages stratégiques de la double nationalité dans les espaces frontaliers lillois et genevois

Ciudadanía de apoyo. Transmisiones y usos estratégicos de la doble nacionalidad en las zonas fronterizas de Lille y Ginebra

Garance Clément

Translation : Alexandra Poméon O'Neill and Katherine Booth

<footnote n="1">¹ The phenomenon of dual nationality, which has been expanding since the 1990s, reflects a redefinition of state sovereignty in favour of greater recognition of the “individual right to citizenship” (Faist et al., 2004: 924).¹ Against a backdrop of globalisation and the affirmation of human rights, states’ “growing tolerance” (Lagarde, 2012: 446) of dual nationality is accompanied by increasingly strategic uses of passports, prompting the social sciences to examine the “everyday reality” of multiple nationality (Harpaz and Mateos, 2019: 844), particularly in cases that do not result from naturalisation in a country of immigration.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² Recent literature shows that the processes of acquiring and transmitting a second nationality can play a key role in the upward mobility strategies of certain non-Western elites descended from European immigrants. Acquiring a second nationality and passing it on to children offers the possibility of selecting from an extended set of rights and obligations, while opening up greater opportunities for international mobility (Balta and Altan-Olcay, 2016; Harpaz, 2019; Knott, 2019; Lamarche, 2019; Mateos, 2019). The second nationality then becomes “compensatory”, in the sense that it “provides global advantages that the primary residence-country citizenship lacks in terms of mobility, economic opportunities, security or status” (Harpaz and Mateos,</footnote>
2019: 849). These strategies can be observed in particular among the upper classes from Eastern Europe (Knott, 2019), South-East Asia (Kim, 2019) and Latin America (Mateos, 2019). As Harpaz (2019) points out, Western European citizens, on the other hand, have little interest in actively seeking to obtain a second nationality, as its “practical/instrumental” scope is particularly limited given the structural disparities between nationalities on a global scale.

3 However, close to France's borders, holding the nationality of a neighbouring country is a common phenomenon that is reproduced from one generation to the next without attracting any particular political or academic attention. This observation raises a number of questions: how can we explain the processes of acquiring and passing on dual nationality when they offer so few comparative benefits in the international arena? What marital and parental choices form the basis of acquisition of dual nationality, and to what extent is it a strategic resource for border populations?

4 By focusing on situations where both nationalities seem to provide equal advantages, this article analyses the conditions of transmission and the “subsidiary” appropriations of dual nationality, in relation to individuals’ class, race and generation. It explores Franco-Belgian and Franco-Swiss “dual citizenship practices” (Knott, 2019: 994), based on qualitative data collected during two periods of fieldwork conducted between 2012 and 2020 in the agglomerations of Lille and Geneva.

5 Comparing these two agglomerations highlights the role of national asymmetries in the logics behind acquiring dual nationality, but also allows us to examine the social and spatial contexts of its reproduction. Some studies interpret the growing prevalence of dual nationality as a sign of a “post-territorial turn” in citizenship (Harpaz and Mateos, 2019: 847), offering resources decoupled from the country of residence (Ibid.: 849). In the cases studied here, on the contrary, these phenomena are inseparable from the anchoring of populations around borders. Dual nationality is linked to a “dual presence” that is not “extra-territorial” (Dufoix, 2010) but stems directly from the geographical proximity between states (Blanchard and Sirna, 2017). In turn, as a number of scholars working on “privileged” forms of migration in diverse field settings have shown (Benson, 2013; Gellereau, 2017; Le Renard, 2019; Cosquer, 2020), national belonging, interlinked with class, gender, and race positions, shapes relationships to spaces of residence and operates as a ranking device in interactions. While dual nationality can be seen as a “transnational capital accumulation strategy” (Altan-Olcay and Balta, 2015: 1117), it is therefore also important to consider it as a *localised* resource. By situating the analysis at the crossroads between the sociology of migration and urban sociology, this article examines the social and spatial conditions that make the second nationality a “back-up” resource in the space of residence and on an international scale.

6 The first part of the article presents the research methodology and outlines the basis for comparing the two border areas. The second part then identifies the main mechanisms behind the production and normalisation of dual nationality in border regions: a long-standing phenomenon rooted in proximity, and assumed to be white dual nationality, which is not part of a colonial context. The third part examines strategies for acquiring, transmitting, and even renouncing dual nationality observed in the two cross-border agglomerations studied. It shows that holding the passport of the neighbouring country not only facilitates international mobility practices but also enables individuals to negotiate their position within local hierarchies.
Box 1: Legal bases of Franco-Belgian and Franco-Swiss dual nationality

In France, dual nationality is poorly recorded in statistics, despite the progress
contributed by the *Trajectoires et Origines* survey. This survey shows that dual
nationality is not common among French citizens born abroad, and that a second
nationality is seldom passed on to descendants (Beauchemin *et al.*, 2016). Dual
nationality therefore primarily concerns immigrants and children of immigrant
couples, and less frequently children of mixed nationality couples. It can be
acquired through *jus sanguinis* (right of blood), *jus soli* (right of soil) or double *jus soli*
(when a child is born in France to a parent who was also born in France).
Taking a similar approach to France, Belgian nationality law is based on both *jus
soli* and *jus sanguinis* (Daadouch, 2001). Dual Franco-Belgian nationality may be
acquired voluntarily or inherited in the case of children born to mixed nationality
parents.² In the latter case, Belgian nationality is automatically granted to
individuals born in Belgium or one of whose parents was born in Belgium (under
the principle of double *jus soli*). In all other cases, acquisition requires the
submission of a request.

Historically, both France and Belgium stripped emigrants of their original
nationality when they acquired the nationality of another state, as well as women
who married foreigners. Both countries also signed the Strasbourg Convention of
6 May 1963, aimed at limiting multiple nationalities. Under this Convention, the
voluntary acquisition of the nationality of the host country by individuals of the
age of legal majority implies the renunciation of their original nationality.
However, Belgium denounced the Convention in 2006, and France followed in 2007,
signalling the greater tolerance of states towards dual nationality. Today,
“denaturalisation” has become the exception (Schmid, 2008: 23), and both states
now seek to maintain political and social ties with their expatriates.

Swiss nationality law is more unusual, as it operates within a three-tier political
system: municipal, cantonal and federal. Each level is involved in the
naturalisation procedure, with the final decision resting with the municipality,
except in cases of so-called “facilitated” naturalisation (Wanner and Piguet, 2002).
Swiss nationality is acquired by descent (jus sanguinis) or naturalisation, but there
is no jus soli.³ When a child acquires Swiss nationality, they also inherit the
communal and cantonal citizenship rights (“droit de cité”) of one of their parents.
These citizenship rights determine the political rights and obligations of Swiss
citizens. It is defined as “a link between the municipality, the canton, and Swiss
nationality”.⁴

Dual Nationality Analysed from the Border Spaces of
Lille and Geneva

<footnote n="7">7 France's border spaces offer rich case studies for understanding practical relationships with the state, as residents there have historically experienced the tangible manifestations of the power of public institutions, whether in the form of customs controls or differences in taxation and prices observed on a daily basis (Bargel, 2017; Clément, 2021). It is also in border regions that the social and spatial conditions for the</footnote>
formation of mixed nationality couples have been analysed, according to the different border regimes in force in Europe since the beginning of the twentieth century (Hamez, 2005). However, at the intersection of these two issues, practices of dual nationality remain relatively understudied, with the exception of recent work on Eastern European borders (Knott, 2019).

8 To shed light on these phenomena, this article draws on some of the biographical interviews conducted as part of a doctoral dissertation and postdoctoral research across two field sites: the Lille agglomeration (n = 67) and the canton of Geneva (n = 32). The first study, conducted between 2012 and 2018, focused on cross-border residential migration among populations from various fractions of the middle classes (Clément, 2018). Interviews and observations carried out with French nationals who had moved to Belgium revealed the prominence of Franco-Belgian affiliations within the study sample. The postdoctoral research carried out between 2018 and 2021, focused more broadly on lifestyles in the Lille, Geneva, and Basque border spaces.⁵ This second study included a more socially diverse sample, ranging from working-class individuals to members of the economic and cultural bourgeoisie. Once again, having a mixed nationality background emerged as a central feature of cross-border social dynamics.

9 The interviewees were recruited in a variety of ways, over the course of a repeated and prolonged presence in the field: through a “snowball effect”, beginning with initial contacts drawn from the interviewer’s personal network; through various Facebook groups playing a unifying role for expatriate communities or the neighbourhoods of small municipalities; and through observations conducted in cultural, administrative and commercial sites. For each of these field sites, the analysis here focuses on dual nationalities acquired by marriage or at birth (through *jus sanguinis* or *jus soli*), but also on mixed nationality family configurations that have not resulted in the actual acquisition of dual nationality. The article does not address naturalisation procedures related to migration to a neighbouring country in the absence of family or marital ties, a case which was not encountered during fieldwork, and which moves away from the central issue of this topical collection. In the Lille area, twenty-five out of sixty-seven interviewees either had known Franco-Belgian backgrounds or were in a mixed nationality couple at the time of the study (and therefore seemed likely to be considering their strategy regarding their children’s nationality). Of these, thirteen were women and twelve were men, aged between twenty-six and eighty-five. In Geneva, this was the case for eleven out of thirty-two interviewees, five women and six men aged between twenty-seven and eighty. These interviewees did not mention any other national origin, and only one held a third nationality (Canadian), obtained through naturalisation. All of them occupy a dominant position in the social race relations, in the sense that they can be identified as “white”,⁶ and therefore belong to the majority group in the local space. All interviewees have been anonymised and are referred to in the article using pseudonyms that best reflect their generation and social position. In order to contextualise their trajectories, the article also draws on a number of interviews conducted with local actors (elected representatives and municipal staff), capable of providing information on the phenomenon of dual nationality, who have also been anonymised.

10 Despite the difference in sample sizes between Lille and Geneva, it is possible here to adopt a “comparative monograph” approach (Pinson, 2019), that is to seek to “identify the mechanisms that generate situations and phenomena that [are] common to [...]
different field sites” (Ibid.: 45), at both local and national scales. There are several reasons that justify a comparison of the cross-border agglomerations of Lille and Geneva. Firstly, although nationality laws in the three states concerned (Belgium, Switzerland and France) have evolved in similar ways, as described in the introduction, the legislation in force on either side of each border remains differentiated (cf. Box 1) and therefore produces disparate cross-border configurations.

11 Secondly, beyond the common denominator of France, the two field sites form spaces with very different socio-economic contexts. The social morphology of the Lille agglomeration and the neighbouring Belgian municipalities reflects the industrial history of the North, particularly the presence of textile factories on both sides of the border (Collectif Degeyter, 2017). In contrast, the development of the Geneva agglomeration and the French periphery owes much to the growth of the tertiary sector, through the establishment of international companies and institutions in the heart of Geneva (Adly, 2014). Geneva's economic attractiveness and its specialisation in the luxury goods sector and international finance make this cross-border space one of the wealthiest in Europe, whereas the Lille agglomeration can be described as a working-class area (Collectif Degeyter, 2017).

12 Finally, each field site can also be understood as a unique “local social space of nationalities” (Barros, 2003), in which dual nationality carries different meanings and operates through different cross-border dynamics. From this perspective, the comparison makes it possible to examine the relative position occupied by Franco-Belgian and Franco-Swiss dual nationals with regard to the specific migration trajectories of these spaces. The Lille agglomeration has been a destination for immigrants since the mid-nineteenth century, with the arrival of Belgians, followed by Italians, Poles, Algerians and Portuguese, most of whom worked in menial jobs in the post-war decades (Rainhorn, 2008). While immigration to Geneva has also historically been border-based, it now involves people from a wider range of social backgrounds and origins, including a highly educated international elite (Adly, 2014). Within each of these field sites, Franco-Belgian and Franco-Swiss dual nationals occupy a superior position in local national hierarchies, but the prevalence of other Western passports in Switzerland tends to temper the dominant status of the latter.

13 By comparing these two monographs, the aim is to understand the same phenomenon: the transmission and acquisition of a second nationality that, at first glance, does not appear to offer particular material or symbolic advantages. The following two sections explain how these statuses have become largely normalised, while also demonstrating that they have a strategic dimension.

## A Normalised Legacy

14 At a time when dual nationality is a focus of heated public debate in France, the application of *jus soli* and *jus sanguinis* at the margins of the territory goes largely unnoticed. In the mid-nineteenth century, the mass arrival of Belgian workers in northern France contributed to the construction of nationality (Noiriel, 2006) and generated major tensions (Lentacker, 1974). Today, the transmission of nationality between France and neighbouring countries has become “natural,” whereas it remains a “privilege” for immigrant populations from former colonies (Mazouz, 2016). This selective view of dual nationality is reflected in how the children and grandchildren of
Franco-Belgian and Franco-Swiss couples perceive their attachment to the state and to the border region: their status is seen as a normalised phenomenon compared to other forms of multiple belonging. This normalisation owes as much to the socioeconomic and geographic specificities of border spaces as to the fact that these dual nationalities are perceived as white.

## Transmission Rooted in Proximity

It is difficult to estimate the number of individuals with dual nationality living in France and Belgium, as national censuses record them solely as nationals of that country. Belgian statistics show that in 2020, 862 French nationals acquired Belgian nationality, representing 3% of all acquisitions (Statbel, 2020), a relatively low figure given that French citizens make up the largest foreign community in the country (12% of all foreign nationals), ahead of Italian and Dutch citizens. However, the proportion of people with dual nationality by birth is unknown. Nor is it possible to assess the proportion of individuals with dual nationality in the neighbouring municipalities of the Lille agglomeration, although the concentration of French nationals is particularly high there (Clément, 2018). However, interviews with municipal staff and notarial records consulted during a separate study indicate that this is a common phenomenon near the borders (Hamez, 2005).

Unlike Belgium and France, Switzerland keeps detailed records of its nationals holding more than one nationality. In 2020, this applied to more than one million people, or 19% of the population aged fifteen and over (OFS, 2020). The phenomenon is particularly prevalent in the border canton of Geneva, where nearly half the population holds dual nationality. Franco-Swiss nationals are the largest group (27% between 2014 and 2016), ahead of Italians (18%), Spaniards (8%), and Portuguese (8%) (Ocstat, 2019). Among these individuals with dual nationality, 60% acquired their status at birth.

In addition to the frequency of dual nationality, it is also the long history and local nature of the phenomenon that give it its ordinary dimension. In families established along the borders for several generations, there are numerous stories of romantic encounters between neighbours. Certain places of sociability between nationals of both countries are known for miles around, and regular frequentation—along with work relationships—reinforces the idea of a community of destiny among populations living around national boundaries. This led interviewees in the Lille area to say things like “It’s always a bit of a mix between French and Belgians”⁷ or “No one is entirely French or entirely Belgian!”⁸ The former mayor of a Swiss border municipality exclaimed:

> "Find me a family in Geneva where there isn't someone French or Savoyard! Even among the old Genevan families, I doubt you'll find one."⁹

These logics of proximity are particularly marked in the Lille border space, where the reconfiguration of industry and the transformation of residential housing markets have led to constant mobility and fostered the development of a cross-border living environment (Rainhorn, 2008). Crossing the border to work, find accommodation, study or socialise remains a practice that facilitates romantic encounters and the local reproduction of mixed nationality families (Clément, 2022). Some Franco-Belgian family lines are formed within tightly knit residential perimeters, as mixed nationality couples form and settle on either side of the border. These logics are clearly evident in
the testimonies of Catherine and Didier Desmet, a retired couple from the more stable fractions of the working-classes.¹⁰

19

Catherine was born in a French municipality within the Lille agglomeration in 1948, to shopkeeper parents, whose own parents were mixed nationality. However, Catherine only inherited French nationality. In 1966, she went with her brothers to a dance bar in Belgium, where she met Didier, who worked in a French textile factory and crossed the border daily, like thousands of other workers. Didier was born in 1945 in a French municipality to a Belgian father and a French mother. Combining *jus soli* and *jus sanguinis*, he held dual nationality until he reached adulthood. At the age of twenty-one, however, he lost his French nationality when he settled in Belgium. After their marriage, under the laws in force at the time, Catherine could choose to keep her French nationality instead of adopting her husband's, which she decided to do in order to pass it on to her children. The couple moved into social housing on the Belgian side, where they had four children. Catherine and Didier later decided to move to France, to make better use of Didier's salary and avoid what they saw as punitive Belgian taxation on low incomes. As adults, all four children moved back to live in neighbouring Belgian municipalities. Each of them retained dual Franco-Belgian nationality, and three had a French partner. This family, made up of three generations of mixed nationality couples, is exemplary of the process of transmitting dual nationality through territorial anchoring, and is particularly characteristic of the working classes. Their movements between two border regions, which are reminiscent of those observed in the Piedmont region (Blanchard and Sirna, 2017), highlight how national origins intersect with issues of access to housing and taxation, which will be further discussed in the final section of this article.

20

As in the Lille area, cross-border mobility between France and Switzerland is a long-standing phenomenon, linked to the delineation of borders by the Treaty of Paris (1815) and then the Treaty of Turin (1816). Some villages, artificially split in two by these new boundaries, continued to share a parish for over a century, which helped maintain family ties on both sides of the border.

21

This is illustrated, for example, by the case of Pascale Maurin, a retired nurse. Her mother, born in a village in Haute-Savoie into a wealthy Franco-Swiss industrial family, married a man born in Paris who owned a holiday home in the same neighbourhood. The couple moved house regularly, due to the husband's career in the French Navy. After Pascale's birth, the couple moved back to the Rhône-Alpes region. Nevertheless, Pascale continued to spend every summer in her mother's home village, which she referred to as the “family cradle”. After studying to become a nurse, she married and had two children. She held various jobs in the region before moving back to her father's childhood home in the 1990s, which enabled her to secure a position at the Geneva hospital as a cross-border worker. The administrative steps taken by Pascale's mother when she reached adulthood enabled her to acquire Franco-Swiss nationality and later to obtain both passports for her children, who remained living in the region.

22

This case supports the observation that dual nationality is transmitted through local anchoring, but also shows how the logic of acquisition is shaped by gender and class. Pascale's children acquired Swiss nationality through the administrative efforts of the mothers, at a time when nationality law was evolving towards greater gender equality. In this family, dual nationality was produced through a combination of local resources —in this case property ownership—and geographical mobility, linked to the
qualifications and career opportunities offered by the parents' economic and cultural capital.

23

Family transmission rooted in proximity is not the only pathway to acquiring dual nationality. Some of the interviewees from upper social classes spoke of inheritances linked to more geographically extensive networks. This is particularly evident in the Geneva area, where economic growth has spurred regional movements towards the borders in both France and Switzerland. Cross-border mobility has intensified since the 2000s, following the signing of bilateral agreements with the European Union and Switzerland's accession to the Schengen Area. These movements are primarily employment-related and have developed due to persistent economic disparities (in taxes, wages, housing costs, and consumer prices) between France and Switzerland (Gumy et al., 2022). But they also contribute to the reproduction of mixed nationality couples and families in the region.

24

In both field sites, the development of mixed nationality lineages through anchoring and mobility sustains the idea that populations living on either side of the border form a single, shared community. Local elected representatives and municipal staff interviewed during both studies often endeavour to normalise these regional binational links. In one Belgian border municipality, the head of the "Population" department, responsible for registering new residents, commented:

> "It's true there's a blending of populations, which means... to us it seems quite natural, this [Franco-Belgian] mix..."

25

Similarly, prompted by several elected representatives, border municipalities in the canton of Geneva and Haute-Savoie have set up a series of initiatives to celebrate their shared border history (Clément and Gumy, 2021). While this stems from a socio-historical reality that is specific to border spaces, this normalisation of dual nationality also reveals the blind spots surrounding white mixing.

## Dual Nationality Assumed to be White

26

In most northern European countries, dual nationality is viewed primarily through the prism of migration and coloniality. As Mazouz (2016: 163) explains with regard to France, “[T]he group of dual nationals is not, of course, limited to those assigned an Arab or Black identity. But they seem to be the main target of the various controversies demanding that they provide more proof or demonstrations of their loyalty to France.” In contrast, individuals with Franco-Belgian or Franco-Swiss dual nationality, mostly perceived as white, rarely see their nationality discredited in public debate, and in this sense enjoy a dual national and racial “privilege” (Le Renard, 2019). They avoid the need to “dispel suspicion” that Sayad (1999) observed in particular among Algerian immigrants, and consequently seek neither to conceal nor to rehabilitate their origins.

27

This dominant position in national and racial hierarchies allows them to adopt a free-floating conception of national belonging, which can refer to effective legal belonging, to place of birth, language, culture, or ethnicity (in the case of Flemish or Savoyard ancestry).¹¹ As a result of changes in the law, which for a long time denied married women the ability to choose their nationality, it was common for interviewees to express a dual national identity without having legally acquired a second nationality. Among older interviewees, especially when their mothers had to give up their nationality upon marriage, the administrative reality of their belonging matters less
than its cultural dimension. Pauline Caron, a French-born primary school teacher, explained that her family encouraged her to embrace a Flemish identity based on ancestry:

"My grandmother was born in Belgium, my grandfather was French, and my grandmother on the other side was a quarter Belgian [laughs]... My grandmother's surname was Meert and they spoke Dutch, they were from Flanders, we had Flemish roots... My parents always said: 'Yeah, you've got Belgian blood.' ...You know, the fact that I'm tall and sturdy... Everyone says that's the typical Flemish look."

28 The biologisation of origin, through references to “Belgian blood” and the identification of inherited physical traits, serves here as a foundation for belonging to an essentialised Flemish community. This representation of lineage sidelines the importance of acquiring legal nationality or cultural skills formalising an attachment to the Belgian state. As the owner of a house in a Flemish border municipality, Pauline has no plans to apply for naturalisation and does not take part in the Dutch language courses offered by the municipality to foreign nationals.

29 Often treated as secondary in family-origin narratives, these so-called “dormant” dual nationalities (Jedlicki et al., 2020) can nevertheless be rediscovered at a later date in individual biographies, typically through the initiative of children or grandchildren. When processes of acquiring or reinstating nationality are mentioned, they appear to be mere “formalities”, especially among upper-class individuals, who enjoy a privileged relationship with the public authorities (Spire, 2018). In the following extract, Anne-Catherine Daubet, a research assistant from Switzerland, comments on how she obtained French nationality through her husband Alain, a banker from Geneva. He acquired it from his mother, who was born from a mixed nationality marriage in a Swiss border municipality:

"[My husband] took care of everything, it seemed to be just paperwork... Then I had it too, I went to the embassy, they asked me a few questions [laughs]. They asked me what my connection was to France, if I was born in France, if I'd lived in France... In fact, I didn't have anything. I said: 'No, no, no, none at all,' and I still got it... [laughs]. It was just a formality."

30 This ease of acquisition reinforces the idea that neighbouring populations belong to the same cross-border “imagined community” (Croucher, 2011).¹² But this community only exists because it is established in opposition to other cross-border links and dynamics, perceived as less natural. This is clear in the comments of Chantal Maes, a French housewife, who distinguishes her family’s migratory trajectory between France and Belgium from that of other migrants. To do so, she refers to a Flemish ethnicity shared by the two countries, which in her view confers greater legitimacy on settling on either side of the border:

"Belgium, it was never like with the... other... immigrants, like the Italians and the Poles. It was really the border here, right next door. And then it was Flanders, you know. Let's not forget that either. There's French Flanders and there's Belgian Flanders."

31 In relation to the Geneva agglomeration, similar remarks were made by Marie Daubet, a retired shopkeeper with dual Franco-Swiss nationality, who considers that neighbouring populations should not consider each other as foreign. She contrasts this Franco-Swiss familiarity with the internationalisation of her home village in recent years, saying that “now there’s everything—even veiled women and blacks”. These comments clearly highlight the underlying assumption about Franco-Swiss and Franco-Belgian dual nationalities: they are produced within white lineages.
32

This normalisation of cross-border “blood ties” compared to other forms of mixing seems, at the local level, to be part of what Lentin (2008) describes as a “silent” European ideology. The researcher considers that race continues to be a social and political signifier that underpins the processes of differentiation between those in and from Europe. In the Franco-Belgian and Franco-Swiss context, dual nationality could thus be seen as an ethnic and racial marker contributing to defining populations in and from the cross-border region. As already noted in the US-Mexico border context (Mateos, 2019), and albeit in attenuated forms here, dual nationality can contribute to positioning individuals within regional socio-racial hierarchies.

33

The racialising assumptions surrounding Franco-Belgian and Franco-Swiss dual nationalities, combined with their frequency and history, make them a largely normalised phenomenon that is sometimes reproduced tacitly, as if it were merely the natural result of cohesion among border populations. Yet, the interviews reveal that beyond the ordinary nature of this heritage, it can be put to strategic use and become a back-up resource, activated or silenced depending on social positions, contexts and times.

## A Subsidiary Resource

34

According to the visa index compiled by Henley and Partners,¹³ French, Belgian, and Swiss passports offer almost identical opportunities for international mobility,¹⁴ ranking among the most advantageous in the world. Nationals of these three countries thus already benefit from a form of migratory “nonchalance”, to borrow the expression used by Croucher (2011) to describe the ease with which US nationals settle in Canada. Even more so than for Israelis acquiring German, Polish, or Hungarian citizenship, the position within the hierarchy of nationalities can only be marginally improved (Lamarche, 2019: 27).

35

However, these equivalences of access to the international space say nothing about how individuals perceive the symbolic power of each passport. Around the Franco-Swiss border, for example, it is common to hear that “the white cross” is an unequalled key, because of Switzerland’s association with diplomatic neutrality and economic wealth. Beyond the prospects of mobility that it offers and the prestige it conveys, a passport may also be sought or renounced for the rights, duties and administrative advantages that it introduces at the national level. Finally, holding dual nationality can influence how individuals position themselves within local hierarchies. The strategic uses of dual nationality can be analysed at the intersection of these three scales (international, national and local), while taking account of the social and generational contexts in which they are deployed.

## Seeking International Protection

36

The accounts given by the oldest interviewees or descendants of individuals with dual nationality shed light on an initial strategy for mobilising dual nationality to seek international protection. These uses, which are specific to upper-class individuals encountered in the field, reflect the possession of international cultural and social capital that can enhance the return given by a passport (Wagner, 1998). This is
particularly evident in the explanations given by Chantal Maes, mentioned above, regarding the situation of her younger sister.

37

Chantal and her sister were born in 1928 and 1933, respectively, and grew up in the border municipalities of the Lille agglomeration. Their parents, both Belgian nationals, moved to France with support from cousins. When she reached legal majority, Chantal automatically acquired French nationality. At the same time, her sister married a Belgian airline pilot she had met in Brussels. The couple bought a house in a Flemish municipality before moving to the colony of Belgian Congo. Their children grew up between Congo, the United States and Belgium, where they built up residential assets and maintained links with the Brussels bourgeoisie. In the 1960s, while Chantal's children inherited French nationality directly and no other nationality, her sister, who also believed she had French nationality and had married a Belgian, sought to give her children dual nationality:

> "Generally, when there's trouble in Africa, France takes much better care of its nationals than other countries. [My sister] wanted her daughter to have dual nationality because she thought she was French. And that's when we realised that starting that year—the year just before—children born to foreign parents were no longer automatically French. So I, the eldest, was French, but my sister wasn't. And we had to fill out a whole lot of paperwork, it was a bit strange [...]. But she still applied for dual nationality. Just in case there was more trouble, well, for the children, so they'd be the first to be repatriated..."

38

The interview extract shows that the desire to acquire dual nationality was triggered at a time when the family's dominant position in the Belgian colonial bases was being called into question. The step was based on the trust placed in the French state in the exercise of colonial power, seen as more protective of its nationals than the Belgian state. However, the application of the law in force at the time of Chantal's sister's birth prevented her from automatically obtaining this second passport. In a crisis situation, symbolic belonging to a single white Franco-Belgian community takes a back seat, giving renewed importance to the legal dimension of nationality and the different possibilities offered by each state.

39

Conversely, in the Franco-Swiss context, the French passport can be seen as a liability, prompting some members of bourgeois families to renounce their dual nationality. Romain Tissot recounted how his grandmother, a French national, chose to "renounce her nationality" in the 1960s, to avoid passing it on to her son. Her husband, the son of a Swiss soldier and himself a high-ranking army officer, considered it unthinkable that their child might one day serve in the army of the neighbouring country. This patriotic refusal was reinforced by the onset of the Algerian war, which made the prospect of conscription in the coming years seem all the more likely to the couple.

40

The colonial context in which the nationality of the older generations was passed on thus leads some upper-class families to redefine the “dormant” legal ties linking them to neighbouring countries. The case of Catherine and Didier discussed above shows that among the working-classes, the transmission of a second nationality to children is viewed more as a “helping hand” that facilitates movement and settlement on either side of the border. The fact that Catherine was French enabled the couple to leave Belgium after the birth of their first children in order to benefit from the French tax system that taxed low incomes less.

41

As the law has made it easier to obtain dual nationality and border differentials have become more pronounced, this dimension seems to be given greater consideration.
While European citizenship is gradually being established, other factors come into play in the acquisition or rejection of dual nationality.

Broadening Children's Residential and Educational Prospects

42 European construction has changed perception of the passports of the three countries studied and the expected return on dual nationality. For the generations that grew up between the 1960s and 1980s, the opening up of borders and the creation of the Schengen area sometimes seem to have introduced a confusion between freedom of movement and freedom of settlement that did not exist before. French people of dual nationality who choose to live on the other side of the border without holding a Belgian passport express their incomprehension and even disappointment with Europe, insofar as European citizenship is not equivalent to dual nationality.

43 When Mathilde, a cultural programmer born in the early 1980s, officially settled in a Walloon municipality neighbouring the Lille agglomeration, she discovered a set of procedures that contrasted with the “familiarity” she had developed as a child visiting her Belgian family. She explained:

> "There's so much paperwork and stuff like that... And I'm thinking, 'But where's Europe in all this?' I thought things would be much more unified, in terms of rights and how things work."

44 The ease of cross-border movement she had experienced within her family thus comes up against the administrative and legal demands linked to permanent settlement in the neighbouring country. In this context, some middle- and working-class couples who have been living in Belgium for several years seek to obtain dual nationality for their children, both to improve the conditions under which they remain in Belgium and to preserve their chances of returning to France.

45 In the Franco-Swiss space, dual nationality appears at first sight to offer more advantages, insofar as it guarantees access to free movement within the European Union. Given the uncertain outcome of negotiations related to the Schengen area, Swiss nationals with dual national ancestry may have seen the French passport as a form of “insurance” for the future (Mateos, 2019), particularly for those experiencing upward social mobility. The mobility advantages conferred by a French passport encouraged Alain Daubet, who had just started his career in a Geneva bank, to begin the process of acquiring French nationality through his mother:

> "At one point, I was traveling to London every two or three weeks, and this was before Switzerland joined Schengen, and I had to stand in these incredibly long queues at London City Airport, and I was so fed up. I said to my mother, 'Are you sure we're not French?' And then my mother said, 'I don't think so... but I'll call the French embassy anyway.' And the French embassy said, 'But you are French! You always have been!' But she didn't know... It was to avoid the queues at London City. And also for the children, because being in Europe at the time was really... Now there are all these agreements with Switzerland, and we don't know how Europe will evolve, but back then it was quite attractive."

46 The consequences of bilateral relations for the possibility of participating in the ERASMUS programme are also of concern to some parents, who see dual nationality as a way to offer their children broader educational opportunities. Another frequently mentioned advantage is the possibility of avoiding military service obligations imposed on Swiss men. As holders of French nationality, they can more easily opt out without having to pay additional taxes or provide proof of physical contraindication.
47

In terms of rights and international movement, dual nationality therefore offers
several advantages, while requiring few administrative formalities. While some authors
have seen dual nationality as “a bridge between national and supranational
citizenship” (Faist et al., 2004: 924), the interviews conducted in the two border
agglomerations show that it refers less to an emerging European identity than to
practical concerns over the minor asymmetries between states in the areas of housing
and taxation. Despite its normalisation and the privileges it confers, some interviewees
expressed reluctance to retain or pass on their nationality to subsequent generations.
To better understand this, we must consider the symbolic role played by nationality in
local struggles to belong.

Repositioning Oneself in the Local Space

48

The few sociological studies focusing on French border spaces emphasise that national belongings are shaped by the criteria of place of birth, work, and residence. Bargel (2017) shows that, after the Second World War, in villages along the Franco-Italian border, being a “native” of the area made it possible to participate in the referendum on the demarcation of the border, regardless of nationality. In the Jura, despite cases of dual nationality and long-standing settlement near the border, cross-border workers employed in Switzerland are still perceived as foreigners (Latté and Hupfel, 2018). Within the border spaces around Lille and Geneva, the significance of dual nationality also varies depending on local configurations.

49

In the Swiss border village where part of the study was conducted, having dual
nationality facilitates integration into the small local elite that manages political and
cultural affairs. This is illustrated by the case of Martin Grosset, a retired
administrative manager who grew up straddling the border. Martin emphasised the
friendships he developed with Swiss elected representatives and shopkeepers, forged
“through the sweat of the same football shirts” during his childhood. At a time when
his municipality of origin was undergoing major changes, especially increasing
unemployment and the rise of the *Front National*,¹⁵ his dual nationality enabled him to
claim a full place within the Swiss petty bourgeoisie and to derive symbolic advantage
from frequenting its members. Upon retirement, he founded an association aimed at
preserving cross-border memory by restoring a heritage site located in France but
owned by Switzerland. This association ensures his participation in neighbouring
cultural and political activities and consolidates his position as a cross-border
mediator. While he laments widening economic disparities and struggles to access
Swiss leisure activities due to his French income, his cultural involvement helps to put
his dominated status within the local cross-border space into perspective.

> *“We’re in two different worlds today! I’m telling you, I can’t complain, but we very rarely go out for lunch in Switzerland, it’s too expensive. It’s far too expensive. We don’t go on holiday in Switzerland anymore. Twenty-five years ago, we used to go and spend a week in Switzerland because it was less crowded than in France, but we don’t go there anymore! ...This association is actually a way of telling [the Swiss] that we have a common history, that we all need to know, so that we know each other a bit better. And then, because today there’s the barrier of the cost of living, it’s true... maybe it helps, beyond these problems, to maintain ties of friendship.”*

50

Dual nationality can therefore constitute a social and symbolic resource used to
strengthen anchoring and offer a legitimate position on both sides of the border. This
position is constructed in opposition to other forms of territorial appropriation deemed
illegitimate, as they are seen as less rooted in a historical tradition. According to
Marie Daubet, mentioned above, cross-border relations between neighbouring French
and Swiss populations are deteriorating as families of third-country nationals move in.
As a result of Geneva's economic appeal, her native village is now home to a growing
number of non-French-speaking professionals seeking a more peaceful environment.
These foreign nationals were criticised by several interviewees for their low regard for
village life and its traditions, and their practices are often perceived as purely
opportunistic. By contrast, dual nationality provides a form of legitimacy to settle in
either country without the decision appearing to be driven solely by economic motives.

51

In the Lille area, mixed origins are used by French residents as a justification for choosing to live in more affordable housing in Belgium. Among the working and middle classes, mixed origins symbolically distance individuals from expatriates or tax exiles, allowing them to frame their move as a choice “of the heart”. However, dual nationality can also form an integral part of the tax optimisation strategies of the upper classes, while at the same time dispelling the suspicion of fraud that surrounds moves to Belgium. In the case of Henri Delannoy, a French company director, his move to Belgium was explicitly framed as a way to avoid French taxation, a move already undertaken by his parents. Although his grandparents were of Flemish origin, Henri did not inherit Belgian nationality, which would improve his tax situation. At the time of the interview, he was therefore in the process of applying for naturalisation.

52

In both field sites, dual nationality is used to support strategies for economic and symbolic repositioning on a cross-border scale. However, the study also revealed cases of rejection of dual nationality, showing that it is not always a resource in the local space. The first dimension of this rejection again relates to the tax aspects of life in border spaces. Around Geneva, the attractiveness of real estate in the Savoy region compared to the Geneva market has led many households to purchase property on the French side of the border. However, since 2015, the termination of the bilateral agreement on inheritance has given rise to serious concerns among Swiss nationals with dual citizenship. Some accounts expressed fear that their French nationality could result in heavy taxation when bequeathing property to their children. Although French tax law considers the place of residence as the sole criterion, the representations associated with French taxation, historically perceived as punitive, fuels confusion and leads some Swiss residents to denounce their dual nationality. This is the case of Véronique Berger, a former Geneva bank employee, who inherited French nationality from her grandmother:

Véronique Berger: "I'm French, but I think I'm going to renounce [my nationality], with everything that's going on [laughs]."

Interviewer: “Oh really? [laughs] Why do you say that?”

Véronique Berger: "Oh, there are things that annoyed me a bit in France, like when they started wanting to tax us in Switzerland on inheritance. I don't see why I should pay inheritance tax in France! Just because I'm French, and I have property in Switzerland, I should be paying inheritance tax in France... um... I'm sorry but... there's no reason for it."

53

The rest of the interview, which took place a few months after the first gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protests in France, shows that Véronique's annoyance is also tied to the neighbouring political context and its local fallout. She exclaimed: "France is ungovernable, we know that!" Like other interviewees, she experienced the disruptions when travelling to the neighbouring French municipality, where some roundabouts
were occupied at weekends. This incursion of French politics into the border region makes dual belonging more tangible and uncomfortable for this woman from a centre-right family who values the Swiss model of political consensus.

Conclusion

54

In the two field sites, Franco-Belgian and Franco-Swiss dual nationalities are the result of movement and encounters between populations close to the borders. Their history, frequency, and the favourable racial assumptions associated with them, help normalise the phenomenon in the eyes of mixed nationality families and local elected representatives, who maintain the idea of a “natural” regional cohesion between neighbouring populations. The relatively low international return they offer also places them above suspicion of exploiting origins. In other words, it is a migratory reality that “does not pose a problem” (Wagner, 1998: 23). Everything suggests that it reproduces itself spontaneously, according to unions and variations in nationality laws.

55

However, an examination of the ways these dual nationalities are transmitted and acquired reveals that they are not devoid of strategic interest and can serve as a back-up resource. While not as powerful a driver of upward social mobility as some more asymmetric dual nationalities, Franco-Belgian and Franco-Swiss affiliations are often the subject of “subsidiary” appropriations, which support other resources. The accounts gathered from upper-class families present the second nationality as a welcome privilege in times of crisis: favourable treatment in relation to colonised populations and nationals of other countries whose diplomatic and geopolitical power is less recognised; avoiding military service; bypassing long queues in international travel for work or leisure; or securing international educational pathways for children amid the uncertainty of Switzerland-EU relations.

56

While dual nationality is often viewed in terms of the international resources it provides, this article also highlights its role in local strategies and shows how “dual presence” (Dufoix, 2010) is practised at the local level. Among the working and middle classes, holding a second passport more directly supports anchoring around border areas. It broadens residential prospects, facilitates the use of differing national tax systems, and plays a part in a symbolic repositioning in relation to wealthier social groups. When placed back into its context of production, dual nationality is not only a way to accumulate transnational capital but also a means of negotiating one’s standing in the neighbourhood. The benefits it provides are not “deterritorialised” (Croucher, 2011; Harpaz and Mateos, 2019), but rather embedded in local and national spaces with distinct social morphologies.

57

It should nevertheless be emphasised that, unlike other forms of dual nationality that can be described as “ascensional”, processes of acquisition and transmission of nationalities providing “equal” advantages do not necessarily maximise individual resources. For example, upper-class individuals may choose to distance themselves from their second passport, considering that the obligations it entails, or the populations with which it is symbolically associated in the local space, could undermine their dominant position. To some extent, these attitudes are reminiscent of those of the Turkish upper classes prepared to give up their second US nationality (Balta and Altan-Olcay, 2016). They call for a more nuanced consideration of the strategic dimensions of dual nationality, which are far from uniform. By proposing the notion of a “back-up”
nationality, this article emphasises the ambivalence associated with dual “premium” statuses (Harpaz and Mateos, 2019), which function not so much as compensation or life insurance, but as a wildcard added to a set of privileges already acquired.

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## NOTES

1. In French, the terms “nationalité” (nationality) and “citoyenneté” (citizenship) do not entirely overlap. While the former refers to the legal and subjective links between the individual and the state, the latter also includes the idea of participation in the political life of the country (Lamarche, 2019). The remainder of this article focuses primarily on appropriation of nationality. As the term “citizenship” is broader in English (Ibid.), it appears in certain expressions taken from English-language literature.

2. https://justice.belgium.be/fr/themes_et_dossiers/personnes_et_familles/nationalite/double_nationalite (consulted on 11/05/2022).

3. https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2016/404/en (consulted on 11/05/2022).

4. https://www.geneve.ch/fr/themes/civil-parcours-vie/devenir-suisse/lieu-origine-droit-cite (consulted on 11/05/2022).

5. Collective research project “Les communs transfrontaliers” (The cross-border commons), funded by the Fonds National de la Recherche Suisse (Swiss National Science Foundation) (FNRS No. 10001A_179555).

6. Like other racialised categories, “whiteness” is understood as a “fictive category” with no basis in biological reality. It is “a social fact that has real consequences in terms of the distribution of wealth, power and prestige”, seeking to challenge the notion of a white norm as representative of the “universal” (Kebabza, 2006).
7. Interview with Raoul Duez, born in 1974, laboratory technician, French national.

8. Interview with Catherine Desmet, born in 1948, former childminder, Franco-Belgian nationality.

9. Interview with Jean Bel, born in 1939, former music teacher and local councillor, Swiss national.

10. In the sense that the savings they have made from a stable income and their access to homeowner status mean that they are less exposed to economic insecurity.

11. While "race" and "ethnicity" are two concepts that share certain common features (they are social constructs that classify people according to their supposed origin), race, unlike ethnicity, is inseparable from the history of colonial domination (Brun and Cosquer, 2022: 61-72).

12. The expression is borrowed from Benedict Anderson, who coined it to describe the process of nation-building as a cultural and political artefact. Croucher (2011) applies it to the North American border context, to describe the feelings of belonging of American citizens living in Canada. I would like to thank Janoé Vulbeau for drawing my attention to the parallels with this literature.

13. https://www.henleyglobal.com/passport-index/ranking (consulted on 02/09/2022).

14. The French passport is in fifth place, giving access to 187 destinations, while the other two are in sixth place, giving access to 186 destinations.

15. National Front, now Rassemblement National, France's main extreme right political party.

## ABSTRACTS

In the border agglomerations of Lille and Geneva, acquiring the nationality of the neighbouring country is a common phenomenon that is reproduced from one generation to the next, without attracting any particular political or academic attention. How can we explain the processes of acquiring and passing on dual nationality when they offer so few comparative benefits in the international arena? What marital and parental choices form the basis of acquisition of dual nationality, and to what extent is it a strategic resource for border populations? By focusing on situations where both nationalities seem to provide equal advantages, this article analyses the conditions of transmission and the "subsidiary" appropriations of dual nationality, in relation to individuals' class, race and generation. At the crossroads of urban sociology and the sociology of migration, the article shows that dual nationality not only facilitates the accumulation of international capital but also constitutes a localised resource, mobilised alongside other resources to support residential, educational or fiscal strategies.

Dans les agglomérations frontalières lilloise et genevoise, l'obtention de la nationalité du pays voisin est un phénomène courant qui se reproduit de génération en génération sans attirer d'attention politique ou scientifique particulière. Comment expliquer ces processus d'acquisition et de transmission d'une double nationalité qui n'offre que de faibles avantages comparatifs au sein de l'espace international ? À partir de quels arbitrages conjugaux et parentaux la double nationalité est-elle obtenue et dans quelle mesure fait-elle l'objet d'usages stratégiques au sein des populations frontalières ? En partant de situations où les processus d'acquisition se font quasiment « à nationalité égale », il s'agit d'étudier les conditions de transmission et les formes d'appropriation « subsidiaire » de la double nationalité, en les rapportant aux positions de classe, de « race » et à la génération des individus. Au carrefour de la sociologie urbaine et de la
sociologie des migrations, l'article montre que la binationalité ne favorise pas seulement l'accumulation d'un capital international mais constitue également une ressource localisée, mobilisée en appoint d'autres ressources pour soutenir des stratégies résidentielles, scolaires ou fiscales.

En las aglomeraciones urbanas fronterizas de Lille y Ginebra, se suele obtener la nacionalidad del país vecino a través de un fenómeno común de generación en generación, sin que llame especialmente la atención política o científica. ¿Cómo explicar estos procesos de adquisición y transmisión de una doble nacionalidad que sólo ofrece débiles ventajas comparativas en el espacio internacional? ¿Desde qué decisiones matrimoniales y parentales se obtiene la doble nacionalidad y en qué medida es utilizada estratégicamente por las poblaciones fronterizas? A partir de situaciones en las cuales las nacionalidades son casi iguales, el artículo estudia las condiciones de transmisión y las formas de apropiación «subsidiaria» de la doble nacionalidad, relacionándolas con las posiciones de clase, «raza» y generación de los individuos. En la encrucijada de la sociología urbana y la sociología de las migraciones, el artículo muestra que la binacionalidad no sólo favorece la acumulación de capital internacional, sino que también constituye un recurso localizado, movilizado además de otros recursos para apoyar estrategias residenciales, educativas o fiscales.

## INDEX

**Keywords:** dual nationality, border, privilege, France, Belgium, Switzerland

**Mots-clés:** double nationalité, frontière, privilège

**Geographical index:** France, Belgique, Suisse

**Palabras claves:** doble nacionalidad, frontera, privilegio, Francia, Bélgica, Suiza

## AUTHORS

### GARANCE CLÉMENT

Sociologist, Lecturer, University of Haute-Alsace, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, Engees, Inrae, SAGE, Strasbourg, France ; garance.clement[a]uha.fr

## TRANSLATORS

### ALEXANDRA POMÉON O'NEILL

### KATHERINE BOOTH