The rap star Gims, Congolese having lived in France almost all his life, intends to reapply for French nationality which was refused to him, he announced to the Journal du Dimanche. “I will reapply for nationality. I am a very patient person, not the type to give up,” he told the weekly.
The singer-songwriter, born Gandhi Djuna in Kinshasa in 1986, arrived in France at the age of two, from parents who were fleeing President Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire at the time.
Not to be French, “this is one of my biggest regrets. All my memories are in France (…) When I travel to Qatar, to the United States… I present myself as a French artist. Not Congolese“, he explains. “I miss him the official paper. But that doesn’t just depend on me. Apparently the refusal is linked to an offense I allegedly committed when I was a minor. But my locker is empty“, details the rapper.
The daily The Parisian, which publishes an investigation on Gims, however presents another version. His first application for naturalization was filed in 2013, but “the procedure gets bogged down“. According to “a former interior minister“questioned by the newspaper, the refusal finally suffered in 2017 is due to”failure to pay fines for traffic offenses and his inability to establish in France the center of his material interests“, the singer residing a good part of the year in Marrakech (Morocco).
Gims would have relaunched his request in 2018, raising the subject with the wife of President Brigitte Macron, without more success, according to The Parisian. He was also questioned by The Sunday Journal on his closeness to the right-wing presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse. “I do not support Valérie Pécresse (…) I support her approach, as president of the Île-de-France Region, for young talents (…) People think that I am calling for a vote, whereas I do not have French nationality. I can’t vote myself!“, he says.
He finally apologized for a video on January 1 where he called on Muslims not to celebrate the new year. “This video, I totally regret it (…) I didn’t want to hurt people. Faith is intimate“, he asserted.