A French court has confirmed and upheld a previous court ruling which denied French citizenship to a Muslim Algerian woman after the woman refused to engage in a handshake with a senior official.
The origins of the case date back to 2010 when the Algerian woman married a French citizen in her home country of Algeria, and after four years made a request to authorities for French citizenship, La Croix reports.
The prefecture of Isere, where the woman lives, initially accepted her request to become a French citizen and in 2016 she was to attend a citizenship ceremony but during the ceremony, she refused to shake the hands of officials for “religious reasons.”
“After solemnly handing her the naturalization decree, the secretary-general of the prefecture and a local elected representative extended a hand to her as a sign of welcome. But the woman refused these handshakes by invoking her religious beliefs,” an official said. [Breitbart London] Read more
