Frenemies: Why UK-French relationships survive their countries’ spats
Nathalie Reis may be a French citizen, but she has lived in the United Kingdom longer than she lived in France.
The London-based translator moved to the U.K. in 1991 after completing her studies in Paris and falling in love with both the English language and the British man who is now her husband and father to her British-born children. “I never felt like a foreigner,” she says. “I have never wanted to be British and never felt the need to be British. I thought of myself as European.”
But that has changed since Brexit, and as Britain’s political relationship with France has deteriorated. Ms. Reis has recently applied for a British passport so that border officials will stop questioning her status. “I
