Citoyenneté britannique et droit de résidence au début du XXIème siècle

Abstract

In February 2009 Gordon Brown’s government promoted the concept of ‘earned citizenship’ which is based on the principle that British citizenship is a privilege that must be earned, that applying for UK citizenship is a long journey and that migrants have to undergo a series of tests before being eligible to get naturalized. Successive governments have further reinforced the criteria to meet with the introduction of a renewed version of the UK Life Test, the reinforcement of the probationary citizenship period and the requirement to have better language skills than before. Ten years after their creation, citizenship ceremonies conceived as the best way for newly registered citizens to show that they have a shared understanding of what it means to be British are still apprehended as a means to give a political and ideological significance to the attribution of citizenship through the development of a national statement of values. Simultaneously the power to deprive somebody of his citizenship has been extended in a context of increased securitization of migration. Home Secretaries have been exercising more and more their power to strip people of their British citizenship and withdraw passport facilities for those individuals suspected of having been involved in terrorist activities or considered to be a threat to national security.