Dual citizenship: absurd or clever?

Theodore Roosevelt called it the self-evident absurdity of current times, while others believe it is the way forward in an era where globalisation has become the norm.

Dual citizenship is obtained when a person is permitted to hold two or more passports of different countries. Whereas some governments allow their citizens to hold several passports, others strictly forbid dual citizenship.

Nowadays more than half of countries in the world have permitted dual citizenship, explained Joelle Garriaud-Maylam, secretary of the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Armed Forces, Senate of France.

She spoke at the 9th Global Citizenship and Residency Conference organised by Henley and Partners in Dubai about the many benefits of permitting a person to hold one or more passports.

Soft power was the term she chose to describe these benefits, as allowing citizens to remain their original status when wishing to take up another one would provide with an arm to maintain the connection between that person and the original state.

Hinting at the ever-growing expat population that is produced by most countries nowadays, she noted that allowing these expats to keep their nationality allows the state to exert influence on the political, economic and cultural level.

Take the right to vote, she continued. While some countries extend the right to vote to citizens living abroad, other countries limit this right to a certain time period or do not allow this right at all.

The expat population could represent an important voice in the election of a party or politician, while this vote would be ignored when citizenship is revoked, she explained.

On the cultural level, she takes France as an example. "At one point the government of France decided that there are not enough French expats around the world to counterbalance the spread of the Anglo-Saxon culture. The government then invested in creating opportunities for French citizens to live abroad and strongly maintained the link with these nationals to promote French language and culture."

"The perception towards dual citizenship has shifted throughout the century, as the concept is now more widely accepted.

"When it was first introduced there was the suspicion of loyalty to the state and the limitations of extracting income through taxes," Garriaud-Maylam said.

However, in the face of economical and ethnical globalisation more and more countries are accepting the dual status, she explained, naming some countries that have shifted its policy.

"The United Kingdom was the first state to allow dual citizenship in 1949.

"France accepted dual citizenship in 1973, Canada did so in 1976 and Germany was the last country to come on-board in 2013.

Although an outspoken supporter of dual citizenship, Garriaud-Maylam noted that the number of passports per person should be restricted in order to preserve the concept of citizenship status as a privilege.