Note: I don’t usually write about politics here, and I’m not assuming everyone reading this is a Democrat, or even from the US. What I do assume is that we’ve all felt, at one point or another, that our elected officials need to know how we feel about the way our country is being run. This essay is more about what it actually looks like to participate in democracy as both a French and US citizen, at a moment when our voices are more important than ever.
In this essay:
As you may know, I am both a citizen of France and of the United States.
Some might see dual citizenship as a sort of “double your pleasure, double your fun” Doublemint gum fantasy, imagining all the places in the world you could travel, live and work while possessing both US and European passports. But in practice, dual citizenship means double the rights along with double the legal, political, and financial obligations.
It also means a commitment to defending two democracies, especially when things don’t seem to be going in the right direction. Given the current state of the world, I’ve been attending more political protests and campaign rallies over the past few months than museum expositions and wine tastings.
Democracy by its very nature is a participatory sport, not something responsible citizens watch from the sidelines.
With that gauntlet thrown, what does that look like for American citizens living outside the US right now? And what is it like to be a French citizen in an election year?
PART 1: American Citizenship in Action
Citizenship Doesn’t End at the Border
For me, living abroad doesn’t mean I’m not affected by US politics, laws, or current events. Of course I can see what’s happening on the news.
But I also talk daily to close friends and family members I have in Minneapolis, Arizona, Washington DC, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Texas, California, and New York. I know what they’re going through, and how they’re affected by recent events.
Even though I’m living outside the US, I’m also directly affected by the decisions of the current administration. Over the past two months, I’ve watched as lawmakers in Congress are attempting to pass legislation that could affect two of the most important rights I have as an American: my citizenship, and my right to vote.
For all of these reasons, I don’t want to simply wait to vote in the US midterm elections. I feel that it’s urgent to take action now.
In addition to voting, there are two other easy ways to participate in the democratic process:
- Speaking to our representatives in Congress
- Speaking out publicly through protests or the press
And while it might be a bit more complicated, US citizens can still do these things from France, too.
Contacting My Representatives in Congress to Protect Absentee Voting
Most people are happy to vote for their Congressional representatives once every few years and leave it up to them to craft the laws that affect our lives. But if you want your senator or representative to know how you want them to vote on any given issue, the easiest way is to let them know by calling or writing to them directly.
While France has 11 deputies and 12 senators in Parliament who directly represent their constituents living abroad, in the US we’re represented by the senators and representations of the state and county where we last lived or voted.
My “home” constituency is Hennepin County, Minneapolis, Minnesota, where I’ve been a registered voter since 1994. Since moving to France, I’ve voted by mail, making sure to register in time for primaries and send in my absentee ballot.
Voting in person would require buying a flight to Minneapolis, since the US doesn’t provide voting centers at embassies or consulates like the French government does for its citizens abroad.
A few weeks ago the House voted for the SAVE America Act, which is framed as banning voting by non-citizens, something that is already illegal. While cases of illegal voting are infinitesimally small, the number of US citizens who could be unable to vote because of this law is significant, particularly married women whose names don’t match their birth certificates, voters who don’t have driver’s licenses or passports, as well as citizens living abroad who could face new barriers to absentee voting (especially those of us registered to vote in Minnesota).
I don’t currently have a valid US passport. It expired this year and costs $130 to renew (not including the cost of official photos and registered courier shipping). Normally this would be an administrative inconvenience I could put off until my next planned trip to the US since I can travel anywhere else in the world on my French passport. But US citizens are required to use their US passport to enter or leave the United States. At the moment, I’m not eager to purchase both a passport and an airline ticket simply to cast my ballot.
Even though the Senate has already made it clear they will block the SAVE Act, Trump is threatening to bypass Congress with an executive order to push it through before the November midterms.
That means I may have to renew my passport and buy an airline ticket now “just in case”. But not everyone has access to a “Plan B” like I do.
Not That France Does Everything Better, But…For the record, I’m not opposed to voter ID. It seems perfectly logical. But it also seems logical that every citizen receives a free, government-issued photo ID like we do here in France. Not everyone has a driver’s license or passport, but in France, everyone has an ID card. That administrative choice solves the problem without discrimination.
I thought my congressional representative in Minneapolis might be interested in hearing my thoughts about the SAVE Act, so I called her office.
If you’re in France, you don’t even have to pay for a long distance call, because Democrats Abroad France have provided a local French number that forwards your call directly to the US Capitol switchboard in DC for free: 07 55 53 64 46
When I called and spoke to my Senator’s assistant about my concerns regarding the SAVE Act, I made a simple point: if US citizens cannot vote from abroad, we shouldn’t have to pay taxes from abroad either.
The phrase may have been coined 250 years ago, but I think most of still believe in the revolutionary motto, “No taxation without representation!”
Protesting Like a(n Unpaid) Pro to Protect the Democracy
I haven’t been dumping any tea into the Seine, but over the past year I’ve attended several protest marches with my fellow Americans in Paris.
Protests and demonstrations happen almost daily in France. Ninety-nine percent are peaceful, registered in advance with local authorities, and coordinated with local police to redirect traffic and escort marches.
Participating in one is viewed as part of civic life, not outside it. They’re a way for the citizens to express themselves and blow off a little steam until the next elections. Despite the casseurs who still show up at the biggest protests to cause trouble, most marches are attended by people of all ages and backgrounds, even families.
I got a crash course in the French art of le manif’ soon after I first arrived in Paris in the fall of 1995. Massive protests and nationwide strikes paralyzed the city for almost three months: no public transport, no mail, no trash collection, no air traffic controllers. I was studying political science at the University of Paris that year, so I was experiencing the French political system I was learning about in real time!
Over the years, I’ve participated in protest marches and demonstrations in Paris for various causes and grievances (even if – like all Parisians – I also sometimes find them really annoying and disruptive).
So for me it’s only natural that I would attend protests with my US compatriots here in Paris when I want to make sure my voice is heard, even across the Atlantic.
I’ve attended a few “No Kings” demonstrations to remind everyone that the US Declaration of Independence was a list of grievances against a tyrannical king, not a “to do list” for the elected leaders of a democratic nation.
I’ve also attended several protests to share my thoughts on ICE’s immigration enforcement and deportation practices, in solidarity with my friends back in Minneapolis. The most recent one was at the Place de la Bastille on Valentine’s Day, an angry-but-peaceful demonstration, with singing and a vigil for those killed by federal agents. The small crowd was mostly made up of Americans and a few curious passers-by who stopped to listen.
In late January, I decided to participate in an “undeclared” protest in front of the Institut de France (the gold-domed building across from the Louvre which houses the Académie Française). Just two days before, the French press leaked the news that Peter Thiel, the anti-democracy tech billionaire and co-founder of Palantir, was going to be speaking at a private event there on January 26th. “Undeclared” means no one had time to register the protest in advance with the Préfecture de Police, so technically we didn’t have authorization to be there, but we showed up anyway.
Some of you may remember how protest authorization became a flashpoint during the Gilets Jaunes demonstrations that began in the fall of 2018: they were given a permit to hold their protest on the Champ de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower, but decided to march down the Champs-Élysées instead. Thus ensued the internationally televised clashes with police as they approached the President’s Elysée Palace with Molotov cocktails in hand, and in later protests managed to invade and vandalize the Arc de Triomphe. Flash grenades, batons, water cannons, tear gas, and flying cobblestones caused injuries on both sides. But not one bullet was shot, even when police were completely surrounded and attacked.
But there would be no cobblestone throwing at the Institut de France (or I wouldn’t have stayed). Our protest against Peter Thiel was just another angry-but-peaceful demonstration of public opinion with the usual megaphone speeches, chants of discontent, and a few hastily-drawn “Palantir Out” signs (all in French; I didn’t notice any other Americans there). Police allowed us to finish saying what we came to say, but formed a protective wall between us and the building just in case.
I don’t know if Thiel heard us chanting (or cared). This protest was more about drawing attention to his anti-democracy beliefs, his bizarre Antichrist predictions, his out-sized influence on geopolitics, and how his Palantir surveillance technology is being used around the world. Before this protest and the subsequent articles in the French press, most people in France had never even heard of Peter Thiel.
At least now he won’t be able to sneak around behind closed doors in France without closer public scrutiny. I credit public protest for the win, no matter how small.
Dual Citizenship and the Risk of Forced Choice
After all these protests and demonstrations, we share photos on social media to show everyone in the US that we see them, that we stand with them, and that we’ll be holding our government to account come election day.
That’s assuming we can still vote.
In addition to the SAVE Act, there’s another law proposed in Congress – the Exclusive Citizenship Act – that would require Americans like me with dual citizenship to formally choose one nationality within a six-month window, or lose our US citizenship automatically.
Despite spending more than half of my life in France, being American is an integral part of who I am, and not just because I’ve never been able to lose my American accent.
While some Americans may choose to leave their Americanness behind when they emigrate abroad, I like to think I’ve represented my home country well during my decades here in France. I do my part in helping dispel the myth that we’re all “ugly Americans”, much in the same way my Secrets of Paris has been helping my fellow US citizens understand and appreciate the French beyond the usual “rude Parisian” clichés.
Aside from the emotional dimension – you might as well ask a child to choose a parent – my life in France would be very difficult without my French citizenship. I’ve been able to establish a business, make a living, and build a family here without worrying about constantly changing visa renewal requirements. My taxes are going towards my retirement and healthcare benefits.
And most importantly, as a voter I get to have a say in how those considerable French tax contributions are spent, because the American in me will say it again: “No taxation without representation!”
Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m not ALSO paying US taxes.
In Case You Missed It: The IRS is Your BFF…FOREVER
In the beginning of this article, I hinted about the rights and obligations of dual citizens.
But the one obligation for anyone with US citizenship – no matter where in the world you live – is to the United States Internal Revenue Service.
Most Americans don’t realize the US is the only country in the world besides Eritrea that taxes its non-resident citizens. But that’s not all. Since the passage of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in 2010, US citizens like me face banking and investment restrictions that actually cost us money and limit opportunities. You’d think this would create a huge financial incentive for dual citizens to willingly relinquish our US citizenship. But, like many Americans abroad, I accept those burdens because even if I don’t need to be American, I still choose to be American.
I will always be a patriot, loyal to the US Constitution and what it stands for, no matter who happens to be occupying the White House.
I would be terribly heartbroken if the Exclusive Citizenship Act passes into law and I’m forced to make that choice.
PART 2: French Citizenship in Action
You Can’t Escape US Politics by Moving to France
Even if I wanted to fully immerse myself into my French life and ignore what’s happening back in the States, that’s not really possible anymore. US politics have always dominated global headlines. Over the past year, they’ve increasingly intruded into French politics as well.
Shortly after Thiel’s appearance in Paris, deputies in the French National Assembly called out the French company Capgemini for providing surveillance and tracking technology to ICE. Public outcry led the company to announce the sale of its US subsidiary less than a month later.
There have also been reports that a French magistrate was pressured by Trump administration lobbyists to overturn the fraud conviction of far-right leader Marine Le Pen so she could still run for president in 2027. Despite her appeals, the French courts have upheld the guilty ruling.
In France, there is strict regulation and oversight of election campaign financing: former President Sarkozy just spent three weeks in a jail cell for election finance fraud and remains under house arrest for the rest of his five-year sentence if he loses his appeal.
As I’m constantly reminded by a close friend who works for the French Judicial Police, French magistrates have mostly obtained a specific law degree and passed a competitive examination to become a judge or district attorney; they’re not elected or political appointees like in the US.
In France—at least for now—there are consequences for breaking the law, even if you’re a powerful politician or cultural figure.
That includes former French Cultural Minister Jack Lang, who resigned from his latest position as president of the Institut du Monde Arabe after French authorities opened an investigation into possible tax fraud and offshore funds linked to Jeffrey Epstein.
Privacy and protection laws are also much stronger in France. Politicians or news pundits who spread blatantly false and damaging lies – such as Holocaust denial, or declaring all women are enemies of the state who should be sent to breeding gulags – are heavily fined.
Technology platforms don’t get a pass: Elon Musk has been summoned to testify at French government hearings about his X platform illegally extracting user data (Europe has laws against this) and for allowing Grok AI to generate and share images of naked children and “nudified” women.
The tension between American and French political norms made headlines again this week when the US ambassador Charles Kushner was summoned by the French foreign ministry for “breach of diplomatic protocol”. Kushner, the father-in-law of Ivanka Trump, is a convicted felon who was serving time for tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions and witness tampering until his 2020 pardon by Donald Trump, who appointed him ambassador to France in 2025 despite having no diplomatic experience.
After the US embassy in Paris retweeted a US State Department message claiming “violent radical leftism is on the rise” following a deadly clash between extremists in Lyon. After he refused to appear to his first summons, the Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced he was restricting his access to senior French officials.
The episode was extraordinary not because ambassadors never disagree with host governments, but because the disagreement played out so openly. Concerns about American partisan rhetoric creeping into French domestic politics have been all over the French news programs this week (surprisingly, this is how some of my American friends living here discovered who our current Ambassador is).
Watching all this unfold has only reinforced my conviction that we have to fight for the democracy we want, or we’ll end up with the democracy we deserve. Which brings me to what that responsibility looks like on my end, as a French citizen.
Exercising Citizenship Locally in France
As soon as I received my French citizenship, I immediately registered to vote. Not only do I have an official French Carte d’Identité to show at the voting station, I also received a cute little voting card that they stamp after you’ve deposited your ballot in the urn, like a voting passport.
I’ve even been a volunteer ballot counter in French elections, where we still use little pieces of paper in envelopes. They’re counted on the spot by volunteers and representatives from all political parties at each voting center, with results tallied and announced before anyone (or any ballot) leaves the room. It’s pretty hack-proof.
I live in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, where for the past three years I’ve been participating in weekly meetups with the local Horizons members (the centrist political party founded in 2021 by one of Macron’s former Prime Ministers, Édouard Philippe). We discuss neighborhood issues (road works and bike lanes come up a lot), host guest speakers (an MEP came to explain how the European Parliament works before the EU elections), or visit local community organizations (last month it was a student food bank). We also distributed flyers around the neighborhood to encourage people to come to a meetup and learn about the relatively new Horizons party.
That’s how I got involved. I was handed a flyer outside my food market by Pegah Malek-Amadi, the young woman who organizes the Horizons meetups for the 13th arrondissement. We bonded immediately over our shared alma mater (University of Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas) and our family ties to Arizona, where I spent most of my childhood. Pegah’s family fled the Iranian Revolution in 1979; her parents came to Paris, where she was born, and her aunt and uncle settled in Arizona, where her cousins were born.
Although I had voted in several French presidential elections, I doubt I ever would have gotten involved in local French politics if I didn’t have this personal connection. I appreciate Pegah’s sincerity and willingness to do the hard work of bringing so many of her neighbors – of different ages, backgrounds, and interests – together each week to talk and debate about local issues. I only wish I had gotten involved in my local community’s politics sooner.
Municipal Elections and Local Candidates
Paris is now preparing for next month’s hotly contested municipal elections to replace outgoing Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo. The Horizons mayoral candidate is Pierre-Yves Bournazel, with the official support of Macron’s Renaissance party. Fred and I attended last week’s rally at the Cirque d’Hiver (insert political circus jokes here), where both Édouard Philippe and former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal gave speeches on his behalf.
He’s currently polling third, behind Socialist Emmanuel Grégoire on the left and Culture Minister Rachida Dati on the right, but ahead of the candidates on the far left and far right. With a half-dozen serious political parties and two rounds of voting where alliances can shift, outcomes are genuinely difficult to predict (although that doesn’t stop everyone else from doing it anyway).
Paris also elects mayors for each arrondissement. Here in the 13th, our tireless leader Pegah is running under the Horizons banner. It’s strange and thrilling for me to see how the issues we’ve been discussing amongst ourselves the past three years are now listed on her platform. I know this is how politics works, I’ve just never been a direct participant in it before.
For the past few weeks I’ve been helping Pegah’s campaign, handing out flyers with the other volunteers at my Sunday open-air market and speaking to the parents dropping their kids off at the school on my street in the mornings. As someone who has never canvassed for a political candidate, it’s a bit terrifying doing this at all, let alone in French!
But I’ve been happily surprised at how many people are willing to stop and talk, even if we disagree. It feels so….civilized. And so much more satisfying than “liking” or “sharing” yet another meme on social media. For someone supposedly so expensively schooled in political science and interested in being a “good citizen”, I’ll admit I’m embarrassingly late to the game on this one.
Whether my preferred candidates win or not, I’m glad I’ve participated in my small way. I hope by sharing this I can encourage some of you to step out of your comfort zones and take the time to get more involved, no matter where you live and vote.
GET INVOLVED: If You’re a US Citizen in France
If you’re a US citizen in France, there are plenty of ways to get involved, whether it’s helping people register to vote through the non-partisan VotefromAbroad.org, joining protests organized by Indivisible Paris or Paris Against Trump (the next “No Kings” protest is March 28th), or attending Democrats Abroad Paris events like the Tuesday morning Walk & Talk strolls, where we hear first-hand about the upcoming votes taking place in the US and important legislation proposed in Congress. If you prefer to keep a low profile, anyone can participate in the Resist & Unsubscribe movement from the privacy of their own home anywhere in the world. There are also non-partisan lobbying groups that fight for the rights of US citizens living abroad, such as ARRO and the ACA. Finally If I’ve missed anything here, do let me know.
I started this essay saying we probably don’t all agree, and I still believe that’s okay. What I hope we share is the instinct to do something rather than nothing. If you’re finding your own ways to participate — or if you’re still trying to figure out where to start — I’d genuinely love to hear about it in the comments.