The debate on French national identity and the case of Anne Sinclair

France is in the throes of a debate on national identity.

At least some sectors of society and in particular politicians from the right are, with the agenda being led by the minister of immigration, Eric Besson, who opened the whole discussion at the beginning of November last year to find out how best "to reaffirm the values of identity and the pride of being French."

Others - and not just those from the left of the political spectrum - are refusing to get involved, going no further than questioning the need to debate the issue in the first place.

Whatever the case, here's a tale that reveals how difficult it can be at times for even those in supposedly high places to prove their "Frenchness" in the face of a bureaucracy that is - to say the least - unhelpful.

It comes from Anne Sinclair - a woman who could....just could....be a future first lady of this country.

She's a pretty well-known figure in France having created and presented the weekly news and political programme 7/7 in the 1980s.

A woman with a proven track record in television, radio and print journalism, Sinclair was, as she says on her blog, even asked by some to embody the national symbol of Marianne.

You can't get much more "French" than that.

Oh yes, and she's also married to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the current head of the International Monetary Fund and potential Socialist party frontrunner for the 2012 French presidential elections.

So what exactly has the 61-year-old fuming and adding her two cents worth to the debate on national identity?

Well it all has to do with the renewal of her national identity card (couldn't get more pertinent to the debate really than that) a laminated plastic card valid for 10 years and used in France to confirm a person's identity when paying by cheque for example or opening a bank account.

It can also be used as a passport when travelling within the European Union and certain other countries.

So it is really a sign of being French if you will, as to hold one you have to have proven your eligibility in the first place.

And this is where it can get difficult - or at least it did for Sinclair.

On her blog Sinclair recounts how her existing card was actually valid until 2017 (remember that) but she wanted it amended so that it would show her Parisian change of address.

So she made her way to the local Préfecture de Police armed with (what she thought were) the necessary papers and, while she waited a couple of hours, could hear the often less-than-friendly grilling others were being given in having to prove their eligibility.

When it came to her turn, as she had been born abroad (in New York) she was asked not only if both her parents were French but also whether her grandparents were as well.

Even though Sinclair pointed out that on her birth certificate it clearly stated that both her mother and father were born in Paris (the capital of France that is) and she already held a valid identity card, the clerk dealing with her request proved "intractable in demanding that since 2009, I needed an additional document, a birth certificate of my father or my mother, which would prove my Frenchness."

Sinclair left and returned last week with the required documents, including this time a copy of her mother's birth certificate.

The welcome she had this time around was much warmer - more to do with the person behind the counter than the administrative regulations it would appear.

But it didn't change the response she received when questioning the need to "prove" that at least one set of her grandparents had been French.

It's a story the clerk had apparently heard dozens of times before from people Sinclair said had been "Less well off than me, with less time, a life more eventful or in cases where it was harder to obtain birth certificates of their parents! But that's the new law - the requirement for a 'double proof'", she was told.

"But why not a third, or a fourth," asked Sinclair. "How many generations back should I have to go to provide proof of citizenship which has never before been questioned."

Rhetorical questions to which the poor clerk was unable to respond other than by saying that it was the law.

All of which leads Sinclair to conclude in her blog that even if it could be perceived as administration simply doing its work given the change in the law, "It's not an issue of bureaucratic red tape but a mindset that is harmful to the identity of France."