British citizens of French Huguenot descent could challenge the revocation of their rights to French
( and therefore EU ) citizenship made in 1945.

The 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes deprived French Protestants, who were called the Huguenots,
of all religious and civil liberties. This led to the widespread persecution of Huguenots, with over 400,000
emigrating from France as a result to start new lives in England or Holland.
Religious freedom was re-established during the French Revolution, and a 1790 law provided that
descendants of French individuals who had fled the country due to religious persecution had a right
to settle in France and claim French citizenship. This rule was confirmed in a slightly amended form
in 1889 and remained applicable until 1945, when the French Citizenship Code abrogated almost
all prior legislation on the matter of citizenship, including the laws of 1790 and 1889.

The article below challenges the legality of the 1945 ruling and thus raises the possibility of
British descendants of the Huguenots going for French citizenship.

The revocation of Huguenot rights to French citizenship

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Surely the time has come for Boris to 'circle the wagons' for a bit of herd immunity ?

Good news if your name is Nigel Farage I guess.

Interesting article. It's dated October 2019.

This article from a Huguenot Society, in November 2020, refers to the above author, but still seems to say there's not much chance of obtaining French citizenship on the basis of being a of Huguenot decent. https://www.huguenotsociety.org/can-...ote-in-france/

I'd be interested to know whether anyone, from anywhere in the world, has suceeded in gaining French citizenship based on this argumentation. That would be great!

Will the descendants of the pilgrim fathers also claim British or Dutch citizenship ?

I like the idea of the Amish acquiring Swiss citizenship and resettling here .

This is not without precendent as descendants of Sephardic Jews, who for centuries
had lived in Spain & Portugal were forced into exile back in 1492, unless they converted
to Catholic christianity or face death from the Inquisition.

New laws were passed in Spain & Portugal back in 2015 to atone for this historic injustice by
giving the descendants of Sephardic Jews, living in other countries the right to claim
Spanish or Portuguese citizenship ( even if they currently don't live in Spain or Portugal )
and with it dual nationality.

BBC News - Portugal to naturalise descendants of Jews expelled centuries ago

BBC News - Spain naturalises expelled Sephardic Jews descendants

BBC News - Sephardic Jews invited back to Spain after 500 years

__________________
Surely the time has come for Boris to 'circle the wagons' for a bit of herd immunity ?

This suggests they must settle in France before claiming citizenship. Up until fairly recently all Brits did have a tight to settle in France. But they chucked away that right. Surely the ‘will of the British people’ supersedes ancient French laws.

Does it mean that South African Huguenots can be coming back on “huge note”?

Only if they bring their wine back with them ...

My Huguenots forebears came to the Swiss Jura- some of my OH's Huguenot forebears from Normandy went to the Cape and Franshhoek. They certainly were a very interesting and talented lot, overall.

Look no further than here

https://www.westerncapewines.ch/

Ja! As long as they come with the wonderful food I was living on in the US. I can trade it for fab Amish clothes I will handmake them.

Very interesting. Prior leaving South Africa, I visited that place many years ago. Franschhoek is famous for Huguenots heritage and there are graveyards of early settlers. One can identify their forebears in alphabetical order.

https://graves-at-eggsa.org/main.php?g2_itemId=16253

And for me

We visited the Huguenot Memorial and Museum there. And so many of the wine makers there still have French names.

Some Huguenot names however !!!

Remember Eugène Terreblanche?

My OH is a true symbol of the Cape- Huguenot French, Dutch, Norwegian, local Hottentot, British, Indonesian-Cape Malay.