France revives a fifteen-year-old case to block a Moroccan man’s naturalization
A Moroccan man saw his naturalization application postponed for three years because of two old cases, one of which dated back fifteen years. No new offense had been attributed to him since then. The courts have just annulled the Interior Ministry’s decision.
Born on November 1, 1967, the Moroccan national had filed an application for naturalization with the Isère prefecture. On August 2, 2023, the prefecture decided to postpone his application for three years.
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The Moroccan man challenged this decision before the Interior Ministry, as part of the mandatory administrative appeal procedure applicable to naturalization. But on October 2, 2023, the ministry upheld the postponement.
To justify its decision, the administration had brought up two old cases. The first dated back to May 13, 2013. The Moroccan man had been convicted on January 21, 2014, by the Grenoble Criminal Court for insulting a person vested with public authority. He was fined 500 euros and ordered to pay 400 euros in damages to the victim.
Another incident dated back to 2008
The ministry had also taken into account a formal warning issued on September 15, 2008, for driving a vehicle without a license. When the administration ruled in October 2023, these incidents therefore dated back approximately ten and fifteen years.
In its judgment of July 16, 2026, the Nantes Administrative Court acknowledged that the acts attributed to the Moroccan man were “not without seriousness.” But the judges emphasized how old they were.
Above all, the court noted that it had neither been established nor even alleged that the Moroccan national had committed any other punishable acts since then. Under these circumstances, the Interior Ministry had made a manifest error of assessment by using this history to postpone his naturalization application for three years.
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The decision of October 2, 2023, was therefore annulled. However, the Moroccan man does not automatically obtain French nationality: the court ordered the Interior Ministry to reconsider his application and issue a new decision within six months of being notified of the judgment.
