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Glossary entry

English term or phrase:

claim to citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies

French translation:

motif/raison de la citoyenneté...

Added to glossary by Anne-Lise Simond
Feb 20, 2019 15:43
5 yrs ago
27 viewers *
English term

claim to citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies

English to French Law/Patents Law (general) Birth certificate
This appears on a British birth certificate issued by a consulate in a foreign country.
This is in the "column concerning the father". The information in the column is the father's date and place of birthh (in UK).

Does this mean "reason of the British citizenship"? > "Raison de la citoyenneté du Royaume-Uni et des Colonies ?

Merci !
Proposed translations (French)
5 +3 motif/raison de la citoyenneté...
4 justification de citoyenneté du RU .../justification de nationalité britannique
4 -1 droit de reclamer la citoyenneté du Royaume-Uni et des Colonies
3 -1 "réclamer la citoyenneté du Royaume-Uni et des Colonies"

Discussion

Anne-Lise Simond (asker) Feb 21, 2019:
Thank you Thank you all for your rich contributions. So many info came out!
I'll take the formula "raison pour la citoyenneté".

@Eliza: it's indeed an "entry of birth" and not a "birth certificate".

Thanks again for your help.
Ph_B (X) Feb 21, 2019:
The plot thickens B D, je me contente de lire les infos et le texte source pour répondre à la q. : on ne sait rien de la situation à part ce qui est dit dans l'intro. All I'm saying is that in a UK admin form, a father is asked why he thinks/claims he's British and his answer is that he was born in the UK. That's all I know - and all I need to know to answer the q. as asked. Tout le reste, ça ne peut être que suppositions, whatever British nationality law may provide. Katsy, oui, je crois qu'on est d'accord.
katsy Feb 21, 2019:
@ BD Finch et à Ph_B I thought, Ph_B, that I was making the same point as you. The father is saying what gives him the right to say he is British
B D Finch Feb 21, 2019:
@Ph_B The father didn't need to assert his own claim to be British. If he was at the British consulate registering the birth of his child, he would have proved he was a British citizen by producing his passport. The only claim in question would be that of the child and would be based upon the father having been born in the UK. However, other criteria would have to be met in order for the child's claim to citizenship to be accepted.

Also, note the subtlety of this being a claim and not an application. The child would have a claim to CUKC by virtue of their father's status, they would not need to apply for citizenship, however the claim would need to be proven and the father's place of birth would be only the chief criterion, not the only one. The current scandal about the denial of citizenship to many of the Windrush generation of immigrants from the former colonies, centres on them having held CUKC status at the time they entered the UK. Some of them have been deported and some have been required to apply for naturalisation because the Home Office (while Theresa May was Home Secretary) destroyed the records proving when they entered the UK on their parents' CUKC passports.
Ph_B (X) Feb 21, 2019:
Losing the plot? Le formulaire demande au père (column concerning the father) pourquoi il prétend être britannique. La raison qu'il donne, c'est qu'il est né au Royaume-Uni (information in the column is the father\'s date and place of birthh (in UK)). De quoi vous parlez toutes, là ? :-)
B D Finch Feb 21, 2019:
@katsy Eliza, correctly, noted that this would apparently be a document registering the birth of the child, but not a "birth certificate". However, the claim to citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies in the "column concerning the father" would be the child's claim, not the father's claim. For the child's claim to be accepted, certain other criteria would need to be met, e.g. that the father was married to the mother at the time of the birth and of good character.
katsy Feb 21, 2019:
@ BD Finch Well actually I think we are looking at this from slightly different angles. We have a birth certificate of a child who is probably if not certainly considered by the authorities as British (otherwise why would they issue a birth certificate?) I'll leave aside things like citizenship, right of abode etc.
The information we are dealing with concerns the father. The father says he is British, he claims to be British. And on what is this claim based? The fact that he was born in the UK. So in this particular case we are not talking about anyone wanting to be British, but justifying (to echo the French term) why he is British - not by naturalisation, not by family necessarily, but by birth in the country.

I realise I am rephrasing what Eliza has said earlier, but I think it's worth doing.
B D Finch Feb 21, 2019:
@katsy Sorry if a disagree seems harsh, but British citizenship could always be denied to the foreign-born child of a British father, at the discretion of the Home Secretary, even if they managed to tick all the boxes and there were (and still are) boxes to tick other than just that of the father having been born in the UK. It is essential to specify that this is CUKC, not any other type of UK citizenship.
B D Finch Feb 21, 2019:
Citizenship or nationality? British nationality and citizenship is more complicated than is the case with other countires. See: https://www.gov.uk/types-of-british-nationality/british-citi... Note that having a British parent does not automatically confer British citizenship.

"You may be eligible for British citizenship if you have a British parent.

It depends on where and when you were born, and your parents’ circumstances."
https://www.gov.uk/apply-citizenship-british-parent

Indeed, I had to apply to the Home Secretary for my son to be registered as a British citizen, because he was born overseas and his father was not British. Citizenship was granted as a matter of the Home Secretary's discretion, not as a right. So. Eliza is wrong about that.

Also, the wording of this, with its reference to the colonies, indicates that the birth occurred before 1 January 1983.

Note that the rules were different before 1983 regarding the eligibility for automatic British citizenship on the grounds of the father's (not the mother's) place of birth etc. https://www.gov.uk/apply-citizenship-british-parent/born-bef...
Ph_B (X) Feb 21, 2019:
Citoyenneté ou nationalité ? Je me demande si on ne parlerait pas ici de nationalité. Il s'agit d'un formulaire administratif et je ne suis pas certain qu'en français ou en France en tout cas, on emploierait le mot « citoyenneté » dans ce contexte. On le réserverait plutôt à des textes de nature sociologique, sciences politiques, etc. <p>Ici (https://www.vie-publique.fr/decouverte-institutions/citoyen/... l'administration explique que la « citoyenneté » est un lien social entre un individu et l'État, qui découle de la « nationalité », qui est un lien juridique. S'agissant d'un service administratif (consulat), je dirais que l'objet du formulaire en question est la recherche du lien juridique plutôt que du lien social.
<p>À mon avis, une administration chercherait à établir la nationalité, pas la citoyenneté, d'un enfant en demandant à ses parents de quelle nationalité ils sont.<p>[Modifié pour ajouter une virgule après « État »]
Eliza Hall Feb 21, 2019:
Birth certificate or registration? Normally a child born abroad gets a birth certificate from that country's authorities, and then the child's parents register the birth with their own consulate (or the consulate of one parent, if only one parent is from somewhere else). That's definitely how it works for the UK: https://www.gov.uk/register-a-birth

So this would technically not be a birth certificate, but a consular birth registration/registration of birth abroad. Either way, the translation is the same -- I'm just clarifying what you're talking about.

Claim to citizenship etc. etc. + father's date and place of birth: if that phrase appears in the "column concerning the father" and the same phrase appears in the column concerning the mother, then it means that the basis for the father's UK citizenship is his birth in the UK. If it does not appear in the parent columns, i.e. it's about the child, then it means that the basis for the child's UK citizenship is its father's birth in the UK (i.e. its dad is British, therefore it is British).

Proposed translations

+3
47 mins
Selected

motif/raison de la citoyenneté...


L'en-tête de la colonne demande le motif/la raison de la citoyenneté (on what basis do you claim to be British? > « quelle preuve avez-vous que vous êtes britannique ? ») et la réponse donnée est que la personne est née au R.-U. (date et lieu de naissance)

C'est ce qu'on appelle le droit du sol (jus soli).

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 57 mins (2019-02-20 16:40:23 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Il ne s'agit pas ici d'une demande, mais d'une déclaration sur un certificat de naissance :

claim
to say that something is true or is a fact, although you cannot prove it and other people might not believe it
(https://dictionary.cambridge.org/fr/dictionnaire/anglais/cla...

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 59 mins (2019-02-20 16:42:16 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------


Lire : Il ne s'agit pas ici d'une demande de nationalité, mais d'une...

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 14 hrs (2019-02-21 06:30:35 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

En y réfléchissant, je me demande si on ne parlerait pas ici de nationalité. Il s'agit d'un formulaire administratif et je ne suis pas certain qu'en français ou en France en tout cas, on emploierait le mot « citoyenneté » dans ce contexte. On le réserverait plutôt à des textes de nature sociologique, sciences politiques, etc.

Ici (https://www.vie-publique.fr/decouverte-institutions/citoyen/... l'administration explique que la « citoyenneté » est un lien social entre un individu et l'État qui découle de la « nationalité », qui est un lien juridique. S'agissant d'un service administratif (consulat), je dirais que l'objet du formulaire en question est la recherche du lien juridique plutôt que du lien social.

À mon avis, une administration chercherait à établir la nationalité, pas la citoyenneté, d'un enfant en demandant à ses parents de quelle nationalité ils sont.

Ça ne change rien au fond, juste une question de terminologie.
Note from asker:
Merci ! C'est ce que je pensais, mais j'ai préféré vérifier.
Peer comment(s):
agree GILLES MEUNIER
13 mins
agree Platary (X)
1 hr
agree Eliza Hall : "Raison," yes. Motif sounds weird in this context.
12 hrs
disagree B D Finch : The UK doesn't have an automatic droit du sol and a foreign-born child of a UK-born father never had an automatic right to UK citizenship. Other criteria were always needed. As the child was born abroad, this is NOT a birth certificate.// Yes.
19 hrs
Err... All I'm saying is that the father claims to be British because he was born in the UK. Do you disagree with that?/Wow! C'est pourtant ce que dit le texte source.
agree Elisabeth Richard : Motif
21 hrs
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "On an entry of birth (UK) delivered by a foreign consulate."
-1
26 mins

"réclamer la citoyenneté du Royaume-Uni et des Colonies"

In this context, I would translate this as "réclamer la citoyenneté du Royaume-Uni et des Colonies" or potentially "la demande de la citoyenneté du Royaume-Uni..."

Peer comment(s):
disagree Eliza Hall : There's no demand or réclamation here. It's a birth certificate issued for the birth abroad of the child of a British person. A birth certificate just lists facts, not demands or réclamations.
12 hrs
Something went wrong...
2 hrs

justification de citoyenneté du RU .../justification de nationalité britannique

Si on veut prouver sa nationalité, on doit le JUSTIFIER; https://www.bernin.fr/index.php?idtf=237
Comment justifie-t-on sa nationalité? En quoi consiste la justification de la nationalité?
On produit un justificatif.
http://www.mairie-saint-paul.fr/documents/justificatif-natio...

Comme le dit si bien BD Finch, il s'agit de dire comment le père peut justifier de sa nationalité... ( naissance en GB ici, mais on aurait pu mettre, naturalisation le ...)
Ici dans ce contexte, le fait de demander la nationalité n'a rien à voir.

Peer comment(s):
agree Eliza Hall : This works too.
10 hrs
Thanks Eliza :-)
disagree B D Finch : There are several classes of British nationality, not all of which include citizenship. Also, CUKC, which only applied to people born between 1949 and 31/12/1982, was different from the current status of a citizen of the United Kingdom.// See Discussion.
16 hrs
I take your point about "nationalité"; and would agree after your explanations that it's better to keep citoyenneté. However, the problematic word, methinks, is "claim", and I am sure that my suggestion is valid.So I find your disagree rather harsh !
Something went wrong...
-1
44 mins

droit de reclamer la citoyenneté du Royaume-Uni et des Colonies

Note that a "claim to citizenship" is not the same as an application for citizenship. It is the grounds upon which citizenship or an application for citizenship is based: in this case, the father's place of birth.



--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 47 mins (2019-02-20 16:30:37 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

The Asker's suggestion of "reason of the British citizenship" neither makes sense, nor is it grammatically correct English.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 5 hrs (2019-02-20 20:49:05 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

I understand this to mean that the reason that the child could claim to be a British citizen was because their father was British.
Peer comment(s):
disagree Eliza Hall : Like you say, this is about the reason, grounds or basis for the claim of citizenship. It's not about the right to demand citizenship, but the reason that you already have citizenship.
12 hrs
According to Larousse, "reclamer" is "Demander avec fermeté à quelqu'un quelque chose jugé légitime". The ST says "claim" and not "grounds for". The claim needs to be proven. See my comment in the Discussion for why you are wrong.
Something went wrong...
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