Mr. French Prime Minister, I am sending you this letter in the hope of restoring the justice that is due to me and to all former French people in America who retain their French pride. In a few words, I wish to assert my right, as a descendant of French people who maintained their residence in America in 1763, to obtain French nationality by reintegration by means of article 21-14 of the French Civil Code.
I inherited from my parents, my nation and the Quebec society that saw me grow up, a living and precious French culture, recognized in the Civil Code as persistent on the lands of America (art. 21-20) . This culture does not perpetuate itself by magic. It is the fruit of the hard work of men and women who have carried it, adapted it, and enriched it over time and circumstances. My personal contribution to its perpetuation in America involves in particular my commitment within the Association Québec-France Montérégie.
We are well aware of the historical wounds that persist between France and Franco-America, particularly in my native Quebec, since 1763. The abandonment experienced by the French here, separated from their brothers across the Atlantic, remains vivid in consciences and, despite our reunion since the 1960s, a promise remains unfulfilled. This promise, which underlies all relations between the Republic, the French-speaking peoples of America, and the Quebec State, is that of the formal recognition of our common fraternity. Without this conviction, expressed many times by French politicians, affirming that there exist, seen from Paris, French people in America, this whole relationship loses its meaning.
Quebec personalities such as Jacques-Yvan Morin, Yves Michaud and André Boulerice, supported this vision, knowing that the formal recognition of this fraternity, through law, would cement the links between the “French on both sides of the Atlantic.” It is only fair to recognize what your law says which, in article 17-10 of the Civil Code, requires respect for the original interpretations of old treaties on nationality matters.
Consequently, since the treaty of 1763, according to the French authorities of the time, did not affect the naturalness of the populations concerned, I ask you to agree that article 21-14 of the Civil Code allows reintegration descendants of French people from America, demonstrating their ancestry and their effective link with France, manifested in particular by the defense of our language and our common culture.
Properly understood, this provision will be a powerful encouragement to the vitality of the Francophonie which, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, is partly linked to the fraternal bond which unites so many Quebecers to France. You now have the opportunity to recognize the contributions of the French in America to the happiness of 180,000 of your compatriots living among us, in Quebec, without feeling like they are in exile. Is this not the obvious consequence of what France itself established by creating a specific link between French nationality and nationals of “entities of French language and culture” outside France?
It’s time to be consistent. The refusal of my request would contradict the precedents established in particular: by your predecessor, Martin du Nord, who in 1841 reinstated my compatriot, the patriot Guillaume Lévesque, to French nationality; by the French National Assembly which, in 1792, ruled on the obligations of the Republic towards the victims of the Cession; by the monarchical government itself, which always recognized the naturalness of its former nationals or their children as soon as they wanted to assert it. All of them, and other French officials, judges and statesmen, kept France’s historic commitments to the French in America. It is your turn to do so, in accordance with article 17-10 of the Civil Code.
In short, I ask that the law, all the law, and History be respected, by responding favorably to my request for reinstatement. You should read the opinion presented in 1986 by the historian Pierre Chaunu as a member of the Nationality Code Revision Commission: “It is an old tradition of French law […]. So you simply declare that you have nothing to do with the Treaty of Paris of 1763 and that, to a certain extent, in good tradition of traditional French law, we cannot refuse it to you, if it is in your heart, and I think it would be a very beautiful thing. »
Yes, for the brotherhood between our peoples, it will be a very beautiful thing.