Red passport, blue passport
On taking up an extra nationality and the mixed feelings that go with it
I’m officially French. I picked up my ID and passport last Friday. It was a crisp, sunny autumn day, and I felt numb. "This feels weird,” I told the nice lady at the Mairie who handed me my papers. She chuckled: “That’s what they all say.'“ It’s funny how much nicer people are on the other side of the process.
I have found myself taking the papers out now and then, examing the plastic case and the red, shiny cover of the passport, looking at my picture and the inscription “nationalité: française” over and over again. It doesn’t feel real, and it also doesn’t feel right. A strange form of guilt washes over me. I have made it to the other side of administrative hell.
Many questions race through my mind. Can I still call other French people colonisers now that I share a common passport with them? Yes I can, and yes I will. Is France’s history my history now? I guess it was always part of my narrative - coming to France for uni was not a random choice. I speak French because of a very specific and deadly colonial enterprise.
Will I vote? I have never voted in my entire life. Mauritius still does not allow overseas citizens to vote. The next presidential elections in France are in 2022 and as of now, I’m not sure I can vote with a clear conscience for any of the current candidates. I had convinced myself that I wanted those papers in part to exercise my voting rights. And yet, here I am, numbed and nauseated by the racist, sexist, islamophobic agenda upheld by most of the French political class. While voting isn’t the only way I can express my discontent, I feel cheated because this moment was supposed to be symbolic. Today, it feels like I have the choice between a smelly sock and a slightly smellier sock that is also wet.
The feelings are still fresh, a tad raw. I am torn between a sense of relief of not having to take up any job just to secure a visa, of knowing that my place in this country won’t be up for grabs at the first sign of political turmoil, that my future is not dependent on my partner, or anyone else for that matter. But I’m also frustrated. Frustrated because by asking for citizenship, I have validated the idea that some passports are more valuable than others. It is a confession that my Mauritian passport was not good enough.
Borders, checkpoints and passport hierarchies are arbitrary man-made divisions that make and break life chances. These lines were drawn by those who accessed power by pillaging other countries and cultures, rewriting histories to justify their claim to the whole world. With this new passport comes a burden and a responsibility to reckon more deeply with France’s bloody past and present. I have no high expectations - this passport will allow me to travel and access jobs more easily. However, I’m not sure to what extent my condition as a woman of colour in this country will improve thanks to it. I have spent the last decade observing the struggle of my French friends of colour to take up their rightful place in the public space. Their biculturalism is constantly under attack, their sense of belonging is incessantly questioned, their identities are invalidated and weaponised for photo props during election season.
This is a new hyphenated identity that I will need to address while taking stock of the new privileges and responsibilities that come with it. I must say that I am aggravated because I now fall under the “Franco-Mauritian” category (Mauritian friends will understand why). That’s why I half-jokingly told my partner that I am Mauritian-French. Mauricio-française. It sounds a bit off for now, but I’ll stick to it.
In other news
My friend Amanda and I have launched a newsletter called Island Pieces! You can subscribe to it on Substack. It’s going to be an interesting mix of personal essays, historical finds, interviews, and surveys on what it means to be Mauritian today. We both accessed French citizenship as adults, so a lot of the aforementioned reckoning will probably take place there. I’ll keep this space for slightly lighter topics (or not) and for some bookish content that will come back, I promise.
See you in a month! ✨manifesting✨
S.