• By
  • Stephen Fidler

France overtook the U.K. as the country signing up most new citizens in 2008, according to new figures from Eurostat.

Some 137,320 people acquired French citizenship against 129,260 in the U,K. In the previous year, 164,450 people acquired British citizenship and 137,320 French. Germany was in third place with 94,470 new citizens, compared with 113,030 in 2007.

In the European Union as a whole, 696,000 people acquired citizenship, compared with 707,000 in 2007.


But Sweden tops the list in terms of the number of new citizens (30,460 in 2008) as a proportion both of the total population and of the number of resident foreigners in the country.

Most new EU citizens were from Morocco (68,823), Turkey (49,546) and Ecuador (27,322).

The largest national group going into one country was 28,699 Moroccans into France, followed by 25,536 Ecuadoreans into Spain and 24,449 Turks into Germany. More Indians (11,825) acquired U.K. citizenship than any other nationality, followed by Pakistanis (9,440) and Iraqis (8,890).

The Eurostat figures are here. For comparison, the number of new naturalized citizens in the U.S. during the latest available year (fiscal year 2009, ended September 30) was 743,715. Data here.