I just imagine the guards opening the gate for a little girl with a school satchel. The bollards which held the gate are still there.
I was born in Switzerland. I was smuggled to France when I was a few days old so my parents could take me home. I got a passport a few months later, with a baby photo. I went to school in Switzerland, 20 minutes from the house. I had to take my passport to school, though we had a "frontalier" card that we'd show in the car windscreen so we'd rarely be stopped by border guards. It was a Schengen external border until 2007, though!
There are many stories of people getting stuck at that border for forgetting their ID, or phones connecting to the wrong transmitter causing people to get 3000 EUR phone bills for roaming data. My first kiss was on that border though, so I have quite fond memories of it!
The problem of growing up there is that I can't be Swiss - my parents weren't resident. I can't be French either - I wasn't born there. So my passport is British by descent. Children cannot be British from me, because I wasn't born in the UK. If I wanted to continue living in Geneva, children would be stateless.
That started me on a long journey of trying to find a new country. I went off to university, and proceeded to live in the UK, USA, Switzerland, Taiwan, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Austria, Netherlands, China, and India. In 2013 I decided that I wanted to move to New Zealand, but the process of moving here has been so slow (getting work experience in Taiwan, waiting 2 years for a case officer to evaluate my SMC visa, finding a new job that pays enough to satisfy Immigration), means that I only just got residency at age 31. (Children born in NZ can now be citizens, which will allow me to get married in future). Hopefully by age 36 I'll finally have a passport and a country to really call home.
Because I can never be truly British. 5 years from now, I hope to earn NZ nationality. Any children born overseas after that could have NZ citizenship by descent.
But a British citizen by descent has no way to "upgrade" their citizenship - not even after living there for 5 years. So I could live in the UK for 20 years, but would never be allowed to have children in Geneva. A French person has more right to become British than I do! They could naturalise, I can't. I'm officially a "second-class citizen". A citizen, not a BNO like people in Hong Kong, but without the full rights of a citizen.
If you have lived in France for the past 5 years (and still live there) you can get French citizenship. If you have obtained a diploma in a French university, you only need to have lived in France for the past 2 years.
If you have moved since then and don't live in France anymore, it might be too late though (unless you move back to France and wait 2 or 5 years).
(Also if you have siblings with French nationality, maybe if they were born in France after you were born in Switzerland, you are already technically French but have to claim your nationality).
My brother tried to apply for French nationality after his 18th birthday before going to university, but the application process is so slow that he wasn't interviewed until several years into his studies. The French immigration officials didn't like that he wasn't living there, so they deferred his application until he returned (and he chose not to return, but went to Australia instead). It may have also been complicated by going to the International School of Geneva in Switzerland, rather than a local French school.
I don't have any other siblings born in France, and my mum is past the age of childbearing unfortunately! My parents were able to naturalise and become French after 34 years. They applied when my dad retired, and after about 2 years they finally got it, in the midst of the political troubles of the UK leaving the EU. There was some worry about whether my parents would even be allowed to continue living in the house they spent 25 years paying off a mortgage to own. They couldn't apply earlier because CERN is an international organisation and doesn't pay French tax, so my dad was only paying French tax after his retirement.
However, I would like me, a future wife, and potential future children to all have the right to live in the same country.
If those kids had a Swiss passport, but my visa to Switzerland got denied, I'd end up separated from them. This is happening to many British families from the area who hadn't tried to get a second EU citizenship. Also, those kids would have to do military service for Switzerland (or Austria, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore... many countries) and learn to kill foreigners. As a foreigner, there's a conflict of interest - I'd rather not have children be forced to kill me.
I'm not sure how seriously you meant this, but that seems a little exaggerated. If your kids are drafted into service in another Western country than you hold citizenship, the odds that they would find themselves fighting a war against your country are slim. And even if it does happen, they'd likely find themselves transferred or exempted on account of a parent being one of the enemy.
On top of that, there are an abundance of non-combat roles for draftees - here in Israel you can spend your mandatory service programming computers, driving or fixing trucks, coordinating international communication with countries that are only semi-friendly (maybe that of your parents, since you speak the language!), stapling papers together with no apparent purpose other than government bureaucracy, supervising a kitchen, investigating higher-ups in the military for fraud and corruption (internal police), diffusing bombs, helping with Covid testing/ vaccine logistics, or singing in a choir. (I have met people who did most all of those things. If you don't want to kill people you have many other options.)
On some level, any participation in the organization is indirectly supporting the war effort, but so is paying taxes. Would you be against your children paying taxes to a country other than your own?
Many other students in the Engineering department of Lancaster University, where I studied, went to work for BAE Systems, a defence contractor and major local employer. I joined protest marches against them. I'm still involved in activism, most recently last Saturday in a solidarity march for Myanmar.
Military service does more than just train violence, it also takes away peoples' youth (which could be spent in Erasmus or Working Holiday), causes relationships to become long-distance and often break up, and creates a sense of national pride (which is contrary to the international views of the EU and UN that I support). The violence may also not be directed towards others: there is a very high suicide rate within the military. I can say that if I'm ordered to shoot someone else, I'd rather shoot myself.
I suggest you read this poem, 5 Ways To Kill A Man - Edwin Brock, and consider how the distance between a murderer and the victim becomes larger through weapons technology, the more devastating the results can be. Supporting the military through R&D is not an acceptable alternative.
https://poetryarchive.org/poem/five-ways-kill-man/
Alternative service for conscientious objectors is sometimes available, but many of the issues above also apply to the police service, and I may not have the freedom to choose ambulance/fire service instead. I'd rather run away than fight, so I've chosen to run to the ends of the earth in NZ.
And I agree that if you're against war, you should not voluntarily go work for a defense contractor.
But i think if you're drafted the calculus is different. Would you conscientiously object to paying taxes in a country fighting a war? How is mandatory non-combat service (say kitchen work) different from funding the military via taxes?
Draftees, even in non-combat roles, often have to explain their service to future governments. Visas can be denied for many reasons, including that. My US visa conversion from J1 to F1 was denied because I was too poor, not having $40k in my own bank account at age 19, but the visa could've be been denied for many other reasons such as political differences: "communism", "terrorism".
What if my temporary work visa gets denied? If I had a family, I could end up unemployed, deported, and separated from wife and kids. Those kids would grow up without a father around, increasing their chances of divorce. It would be disastrous.
Would I rather choose a wife based on her nationality, or go through the long, gruelling process of trying to earn it? My girlfriend is from Taiwan, and despite its many flaws, the Immigration system is really my only hope for getting the prerequisites to start a family.
There might still be some countries that require that a child be born physically within the country as well, though I don’t track it.
Good luck finding your home.
I am Australian and can recommend Australia wholeheartedly, although I know we make immigration thoroughly difficult.
I've never heard that word till I started playing GeoGuessr.
Hmm, her husband is Belgian, if moving is involved you're right: he might want them to head into France.
Perhaps they could each move one of them!
Marc is from Belgium, Emma is from France. When it came time to decide where to live, they couldn't come to an agreement so compromised and live on the border. But what they didn't know is that neither of them ever truly gave up the fight. Tune in for their late night heists and hijinks as they try to move into their preferred country... by moving the border! Fridays at 8pm on the WEB.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Bangladesh_encla...
However India-Bangladesh has enclaves of a higher nesting order.
Once Britishers came, Bengal was separated from the rest of India along their borders of their territories.
It looks like a very French first name and a very Dutch last name. Is that common in Belgium? Is there a significant overlap between the linguistic communities of Belgium?
- There's rather limited contact between the linguistic communities of Belgium.
- Knowledge of nl is generally extremely limited in Wallonia. I have a feeling it's improving a bit, even if nl is not obligatory in education there.
- Knowledge of fr is clearly worsening with the youngest generation in Flanders, even if fr is obligatory in education there.
- Mixed nl/fr work environments used to be fr.
- Friends from outside Belgium often tell me they notice absurd humor as a common trait.
- Lots of interesting things to say about language community history too. Long story short, the language border hardly moved the last few hundred years, except for Brussels turning majority nl-> fr in the last ~100 years [0].
- Did you know Belgium has large ar, ber, de (official language!), it, ku, ln and tr communities too?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francization_of_Brussels
P.S. If you like Poelvoorde, watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brand_New_Testament .
ln: Bantu Lingala
ku: Kurdish
I theorise that neighbouring countries, especially those that fought a lot in the past evolve these odd language-language meaning issues. Some folks just start using a word from the neighbour country’s language, but use it in their language with a totally different meaning, often chosen to be hilariously different. Then if it turns into a sort of meme, eventually it ends up in the language.
Explains why you had some of the best surrealists back in the day
Jean-Claude Van Varenberg (the real name of Jean-Claude Van Damme). It is incredibly common. I've got many several french speaking belgian friends, with a french name but a dutch family name.
> Is there a significant overlap between the linguistic communities of Belgium?
I would say not anywhere near what the name / family names may suggest. The north/south separation in Belgium is quite clear and although mixed french/flemish couples are by not means rare, I'd say the overlap is still not huge. Even in Brussels native flemish speaking people are only 6% of the population.
It does throw me when some documentary interviews a Frenchman with a very German last name. Until I find out he lives in Alsace. That area traded hands so many times. There are some French names on the other side of the border too, I’m told.
And isn’t “Austria” just a mistranslation of the German for “The outer lands”? But we don’t talk about that any more. Not since The War.
Ost - East
Öster - To the east, easter - relative to something
Reich - Empire
And yes, "we do not talk about that" since the war ended, the Myth that we were the "First Victim of the Nazis" still perpetuates, at least in the Generation of my Grandmother (who is 94).
The only austrian resistance when the nazis entered in 1938 was a Group of International Brigades that had returned from the spanish Civil War and they all got slaughtered. You likely will not find that in a lot of history books either, somehow the ~80.000 international Volunteers of the Civil War in Spain are rarely mentioned anywhere.
No Pasaran!
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%A3%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%9... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine
Most people with FR first name and Dutch last name are Walloons who probably do not speak Flemish.
Having said that.. In an attempt to get me to learn Flemish, my parents placed me in a Flemish-speaking school. Most Flemish kids spoke decent French. The other way isn’t so true. Too many French-speaking Belgians don’t bother to learn Flemish.
And even french have trouble understanding the Quebec language.
Some that learned it never use it, so they forget it though. But they don't need it professionally.
> but the compulsory classes don't get you anywhere near native proficiency.
And my proficiency is good enough work related and when I meet people. With no issues.
What more would i need?
I hope the original poster replies as well, it would be interesting to know if he knows the history behind his last name.
If that's the bar, then i reached it. No?
Being native doesn't matter. Plenty of people here learned English by classes, tv and online while not being a native English speaker and you wouldn't even notice it ( eg. me)
Some are noticable, like people from the netherlands have a certain accent while speaking and you still understand them perfectly.
Here's my point again: A native speaker has no single advantage over a non-native speaker, if they are at a certain level.
> compulsory classes don't get you anywhere near native proficiency.
It gets you good enough to explain yourself and speaking. You don't need native proficiency.
What you need is to practise it afterwards, if multiple years go by. Even native dutch speakers that went abroad don't speak dutch anymore well by lack of repetition over ( a lot of) years.
PS. My original reply was not on a question. But on the statement quoted above.
Some old people in french speaking still speak dialect dutch. Not the "new" generation.
French Flanders: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flanders
Additionally, Wallonië is also french speaking and not dutch.
So my guess is that it's pretty common ;)
His first album "Sacre Geranium" is a strange kind of masterpiece. Naive, comical, poetic, and strangely complex musically at the same time (all that mostly as a solo acoustic guitar voice act)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx4Au2Tchqw&list=OLAK5uy_kBI...
some times the 'local' title for films that are in English get another unrelated English title.
> Man Bites Dog is an intensely disturbing movie that, despite having frequent moments of dark humor, is shockingly violent and very difficult to watch.
With 74% on RT, which is pretty good. I already have conflicting emotions from this. The descriptions evoke the spirit of Bret Easton Ellis' stuff.
What I've seen of French film violence tends to be cinematic in an off-putting way, but perhaps that's only post-2000s explosion of movie tricks.
I watched it as a teen with my family and it didn't shock me in the least. It's serious but not traumatizing.
Today, as an adult and a dad I dont know if I could watch the kid murder scene.
I'm fairly certain most people outside of the north-american-cancel bubble know how to separate fantasy from reality, so while maybe hard to watch, there won't be any uproar.
Edit: judging by the downvotes, HN is not outside that bubble, my mistake
Where did you grew up and are you still regularly there?
Ps. If it's near, here's something unique about the neighborhood: https://www.google.com/amp/s/sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/20...
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piQPaxlZWu4 (With English subtitles)
But, as someone who grew up less than 100 meters from this border, I'm pretty sure this stuff actually happens all over.