How to apply for a certificate of French nationality (CNF)

En français : Comment demander un certificat de nationalité française

Despite appearances, a French passport or a French national identity card do not prove the French nationality of their holder, because the authority that issued them is not empowered to rule on the French nationality of individuals.

However, this proof may be necessary in some cases, for example :

A first application for a French passport or a French identity card
The transcription into French vital registry of the birth certificate of a French national born abroad
A French naturalization on the basis of marriage with a French person

To prove his French nationality, an individual has several options, one of them being the application for a certificate of French nationality (CNF).

If the CNF is not the only way to prove one’s French nationality (it can be recognized by a court following a judicial procedure), it is undoubtedly the fastest way, the least expensive, and the most suitable for a majority of people, whose goal is to achieve a concrete result as quickly, as efficiently as possible, and at a lower cost.

Until 2022, applications for CNF were not subject to any specific procedure, which is why the various courts (tribunaux judiciaires, competent to issue CNF) have adopted, over time, varying practices¹, and processing times could be as long as several years, without the applicant being able to do anything about it.

By a decree of June 17, 2022 (n°2022-899), which came into force on September 1st, 2022, the French government has implemented a more restrictive procedural framework, which is supposed to ensure legal security for applicants and contain the duration of proceedings.

It is the regulation that every applicant must know today, and which is summarized below.

Which authority to apply to

Officially, the only authority empowered to issue a CNF is the head of the court registry (directeur des services de greffe judiciaires) of the competent court (tribunal judiciaire).

He will sign all the certificates but the instruction of the files is delegated, in some courts, to a service de la nationalité française, placed under his authority.

The territorial jurisdiction of the courts is determined according to the following criteria²:

According to the applicant’s domicile, if he lives in France;
According to the applicant’s place of birth, if he lives abroad but was born in France;
If the applicant was born and lives abroad, the tribunal judiciaire de Paris has jurisdiction;

Refer to Annex 9 of the code d’organisation judiciaire to know exactly which court to apply to.

What formalities to carry out

The application for a CNF is a personal process, each CNF can only concern one person.

The most important formality, introduced in 2022, is the obligation to complete, date, and sign a standardised form, without which an application file is unacceptable³.

In the form, the applicant must indicate his contact details and the origin of his French nationality: by descent, by jus soli, by naturalization etc. The form normally allows him to know the list of documents he must submit.

It is not mandatory to be represented by a lawyer, although the assistance of a specialist is often useful.

What documents to obtain

The documents accompanying the form are supposed to allow the court to determine whether the conditions for access to French nationality are met.

For example in the case of a person claiming French nationality by descent, the documents must demonstrate his filiation with his French ascendant, that the latter is, indeed, French, and finally that the applicant remained French until the day of the application.

In all cases, once the list of mandatory documents has been determined, thanks to the form, it is necessary to gather those documents, keeping in mind some important principles:

Each exhibit must be presented in original⁴, including the form and translations. By exception, photocopies may be provided concerning identity documents (passports, identity cards) and documents produced in a single copy (livrets de famille for example).
Vital records must be produced in full copy⁵. Partial extracts are not accepted. The purpose is to establish the civil status of the applicant with absolute certainty.
Foreign documents may need to be legalized or apostilled⁶, depending on their country of origin. For example, to be valid in France, American vital records must be apostilled by American authorities, due to ratification by the US and France of the convention of October 5, 1961, abolishing the requirement of legalisation for foreign public documents. At the same time, British vital records are exempt from apostille and legalization under a Franco-British bilateral agreement of April 3rd, 1937. To know the formalities to be accomplished for each type of exhibit, it is necessary to refer to the table, regularly updated, made by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
All documents in a foreign language (including english) must be translated into French by a sworn translator registered with a French court of appeal, or by a translator empowered to intervene with the judicial or administrative authorities of another European country⁷.
French vital records must be produced for less than 3 months⁸.

The originals can be retrieved at the end of the procedure.

How the rest of the procedure unfolds

Once the documents and the form have been sent by mail, or filed in person at the court registry (greffe), the court must provide an acknowledgement of receipt (accusé de réception), and then estimate whether the file is complete or not.

For the rest of the procedure, communications, that do not involve sending original documents, are sent by e-mail to the applicant’s e-mail address⁹.

If the file is incomplete, the court sends a request for additional documents to the applicant. If it is complete, the court issues a récépissé¹⁰.

Once the récépissé is issued, the court has 6 months to make its decision, positive or negative. If no decision is taken after 6 months, the application is deemed rejected¹¹.

Even after the récépissé is issued, the court may at any time require the applicant to submit additional documents, even if they are not mentioned in the form.

If the court considers that the conditions are met, it issues a copy of the certificate of French nationality to the applicant in person¹². If necessary, the certificate can be sent to a French consulate abroad which will carry out the handover.

The CNF has an unlimited period of validity. However, it may be challenged in some circumstances.

Otherwise, the refusal to issue a certificate is a written reasoned decision, sent to its recipient by e-mail.

What options in case of refusal

In the event of a refusal, the applicant has several options:

Submit a new application

Any applicant, who is denied a CNF, always has the possibility to file a new application, complying again with all the aforementioned requirements.

However, such an option only makes sense if the previous refusal was based on an irregularity that has now disappeared (one or more missing exhibits finally obtained, legalization now completed etc).

Appeal against the refusal

In the event of a written refusal, or after the aforementioned legal period of 6 months, an applicant has the right to challenge the denial of his application by filing an appeal with the court having jurisdiction¹³ (not necessarily the same as that which took the refusal of CNF), in a judicial framework this time.

The time limit for filing an appeal is 6 months following the reception of the written decision of refusal, or following the implicit refusal¹⁴.

The claimant must be represented by a lawyer¹⁵.

In addition, he has to attach the CNF application form to the request¹⁶.

The appeal is examined in the ordinary written civil procedure, and leads to a ruling on whether or not to grant the CNF to the claimant¹⁷

This procedure, introduced in 2022, finally has little interest because it accumulates the drawbacks of CNF applications (low value of the final document) and those of the judicial proceeding (long and expensive). Eventually, a judicial claim is always preferable.

Initiate a judicial claim : « action déclaratoire de nationalité française »

An action déclaratoire de nationalité française is a judicial process aimed at having one’s French nationality recognized by a court of law.

This procedure is independent from CNF applications, so that any person can judicially claim that he is French, even without having been previoiusly denied a CNF.

Unfortunately this is a long (between 1 and 2 years) and expensive process, since it is mandatory to be represented by a lawyer¹⁸.

But the judgment thus obtained has a much higher legal value than that of a CNF, since it is vested with the authority of res judicata¹⁹. This means that the French nationality of the applicant can be raised by any person to any person or any administration, without possible dispute.

This, despite the circulaire of May 5, 1995 providing common guidelines ↩︎
Article R. 211-18 of the code de l’organisation judiciaire ↩︎
Article 1045-1 of the code de procédure civile ↩︎
Article 9 of the décret n°93-1362 of December 30, 1993 ↩︎
Ibid. 4 ↩︎
Ibid. 4 ↩︎
Ibid. 4 ↩︎
Ibid. 4 ↩︎
Ibid. 3 ↩︎
Ibid. 3 ↩︎
Ibid. 3 ↩︎
Ibid. 3 ↩︎
Article 1045-2 of the code de procédure civile ↩︎
Ibid. 13 ↩︎
Ibid. 13 ↩︎
Ibid. 13 ↩︎
Ibid. 13 ↩︎
Article 760 of the code de procédure civile ↩︎
Article 29-5 of the code civil ↩︎