French naturalization criteria were designed to restrict citizenship to a proven loyal elite

Evidence

We have an ever greater interest in according naturalizations only to individuals whose absolute loyalty has been proven, and whose right to this exceptional favor has been well and truly earned. The objective of the decrees of May 25, 1912, March 25, 1915, and February 14, 1918, was not, indeed, to grant automatically naturalizations to individuals who had met the objective conditions for citizenship enumerated in these texts. In leaving it up to the competent authorities to decide if these conditions were backed up by evidence of sufficient morality and loyalty, the legislature purposefully intended to limit to an elite access to the rights that citizenship confers. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 576

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies that the 1912/1915/1918 decrees’ objective citizenship criteria were never meant to be applied automatically - ‘sufficient morality and loyalty’ was the discretionary gate keeping citizenship an elite privilege.
• XREF: connects to: Nativists pursued naturalization restriction chiefly to curtail foreign-born political power. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 581