PARIS, Jan. 27 (UPI) — French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira resigned Wednesday after a clash over a plan to strip dual citizens of French citizenship after a terrorism conviction.
As a means of fighting homegrown terrorism, President Francois Hollande recommended amending the country’s Constitution so that French citizenship could be removed from those born in France but holding dual citizenship. The country already allows the stripping of French nationality from those born elsewhere.
Parliamentary discussion on the matter was expected to begin Wednesday.
The statement acknowledging Taubira’s resignation from Hollande’s office mentioned the two agreed she must leave her position. She will be replaced by Jean-Jacques Urvoas, a Parliament member from Brittany’s Finistere region.
Taubira, 63, opposed the amendment since it was first proposed in December. It was not the first time she openly opposed action by Hollande. As justice minister, it would have fallen to her to persuade legislators to amend the Constitution.
“Stripping citizenship from people born French, who have belonged to the national community since their birth, raises a substantial problem on a fundamental principle: the right of soil,” she said in an interview with a radio station in Algeria, a French colony until 1962 which provides dual citizenship to many French nationals.
