New citizens must take 'French' names, right-wing politician Julien Aubert insists

Proposal part of pamphlet aimed at helping Muslims better ‘integrate’ into French society

Julien Aubert addresses the government on 12 December, 2017 (AFP/Getty)

Anyone who wants to take French nationality, including Britons seeking refuge from Brexit, should be forced to take a French first name from the Christian saints or the great figures of the country’s history before they get their passport, a leading opposition politician has said.

That is just one of the 18 radical proposals that Julien Aubert, deputy secretary general of the right-wing Les Républicains party founded by Nicolas Sarkozy, outlines in a new pamphlet he has published with the stated aim of better integrating Muslims into France’s staunchly secular society.

Making foreigners take a French name is an idea which has gained traction in France since the reactionary and bestselling author Eric Zemmour launched a blistering attack on a black TV commentator.

In September, Zemmour, who also writes a weekly column for the conservative newspaper Le Figaro, told Hapsatou Sy, another guest on the television programme on which he was appearing, that it was a pity her parents had not given her a proper “French name”.

“Your name is an insult to France,” said the author of French Suicide and French Destiny, in which he mixes unabashed Islamophobia with historical revisionism.

The remarks sparked yet another round of soul-searching about French national identity and rekindled the often bitter debate on whether the country’s Muslims, numbering between 5 and 7 million both French and foreign, can be fully integrated.

Mr Aubert’s approach is slightly less antagonistic than Zemmour’s, even if it does fit largely with what the writer preaches on the issue of names.

“Any foreigner who becomes French, or any child born here to foreign parents, should at the moment of acquiring nationality take on a second name that is French,” he told The Independent.

That goes not just for Muslims, he said, but for any foreigner, be they Chinese or American or British, who have applied in their thousands for French nationality since the Brexit referendum.

“The best thing a foreigner can do when he arrives in a country if he wants to integrate is to fit in,” said Mr Aubert, and in his view taking a solid French name such as Jean or Michel is a good place to start.

The name would however not become the person’s main first name unless he or she so wished.

Mr Aubert noted approvingly that until 1993, French parents were legally obliged to pick a name for their offspring from a long list of acceptable “prénoms” drawn up by authorities.

His 50-page pamphlet titled the “Tricolour Booklet on the Islam(s) of France”, also calls for Muslim women to be banned from wearing headscarves in public institutions such as publicly owned companies or universities, and even in the street in certain circumstances.

France banned the wearing of hijabs by pupils in state schools and employees in state buildings in 2004 on the grounds of secularism. And in 2010 it banned the burqa, which fully covers a woman’s face and body, in any public space.

Mr Aubert said that his proposal to make foreigners take on a French name was not inspired by Zemmour’s televised outburst.

He also dismissed the claim by the far-right leader Marine Le Pen that she had the same idea years ago.

“I don’t recall Marine Le Pen ever saying this,” Mr Aubert said.

Jean-Yves Camus, a political scientist and an expert on the far right, said Mr Aubert’s idea about names was “absurd”.

He notes that the rules for getting French nationality in the 1930s, when among other waves of immigration there was an influx of Jews from eastern Europe, were far more stringent than they are today, yet then there was no requirement to take on a French first name.

Mr Aubert said Les Républicains party leader Laurent Wauquiez had not yet expressed an opinion on his proposition, and he could not yet say whether the idea would become official party policy.

Les Républicains, under various names, had been in and out of power In France for decades until the centrist Emmanuel Macron came along and upended French politics when he won the presidential election last year.

The party, now reduced to a rump in parliament and bitterly divided, has lurched to the right under Mr Wauquiez in a bid to win over Le Pen voters, and has hardened its anti-immigration stance.

Mr Aubert’s desire to force foreigners to take on French names when they become French would not appear out of keeping with current party policy.