Syrian Citizenship Disappeared 4. A Short history of Syria: Greater Syria, comprising of today’s Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine/Israel, was included to the Ottoman Empire in 1516. For 400 years, the Empire ruled over its territory, but at the end of its existence, factors such as the Ottoman reformation, the European economic expansion, or the agrarian commercialisation, led Damascene families to merge into a more cohesive entity in the 1860’s. The Empire started its decline in the late eighteenth century, but the years 1908 to 1918 truly led to its dissolution. The 1908 Revolution conducted by the Young Turks aimed at creating a secularist Ottomanist world view. This impacted Syrian provinces, as the threat of a wide Turkification also strengthened Syrian nationalism. In 1914, the First World War led to reshaping the region into the territories we know today. Great Britain and France organised, during a series of meeting, the partition of the Ottoman Empire, all the whilst British diplomats promising to Arab leader Amir Faysal an Arab Kingdom comprising a territory from Iran to the Mediterranean. French eventually established their mandate over Syria in 1916 with Sykes-Picot agreement, finalised during the 1920 San Remo Conference. In the north, the border with Turkey remained unstable and its delineation actually led the French occupying mower and Turkey to wage a war on its basis. The 1921 Franklin-Bouillon Agreement, confirmed two years later by the Treaty of Lausanne established the border. France would thus remain in Syria until 1946. Nationalism, whose foundation had been laid prior to the start of the mandate, truly rose as a consequence of French occupation. During the French mandate, a nationalist conscience grew among the Damascene elite, and France unsuccessfully aimed for a dangerous balance. On the one hand, the mandatory power could not permit a nationalist movement to take root, as this would threaten its very presence in Syria. Policies were therefore drafted to “weaken and isolate the forces of nationalism”. On the other 10 August 2018) 8 hand, the mandatory power needed to build a state, in order to ensure the success of its mission there, based on three pillars: moral, political and economic. The independence of Syria gave way to Arab nationalism. Marked by a period of instability, the successive coups that marked the 19461963 period had all in common to put a strong emphasis on Arab nationalism, including with the unification of Syria and Egypt in a new United Arab Republic. Arab nationalism was also at the core of Ba’athism, the political movement that took over power in 1963, and that was later on incarnated by Hafiz and subsequently Bassad Al Assad. 5. The origins of Syrian nationality: Under the Ottoman Empire, Syrian nationality was ruled by the Ottoman government, known as the Porte, referring to Topkapi’s palace’s gate. Nationality was traditionally ruled by Islamic law, until, in order to prevent non-Muslim ottomans from escaping their obligations as nationals of the Empire, the Porte enacted the 1869 Law number 19, inspired by French legislation, with a strong emphasis on jus sanguinis. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, creating new states, also established the citizenship regulations of the states it created, including Syria’s. A set of three legislations govern the nationality. First, the Treaty of Lausanne organised the new Syrian nationality on the basis of the place of habitation: it states in its Article 30 that Turkish citizens living on the territory of a state created by the Treaty become citizens of this state. Thus, anyone living on the territory of Syria obtained the Syrian citizenship. In 1924, the French High Commissioner, in the arrêté 2825, elaborated on the transmission from the Ottoman to the Syrian nationality. To this end, the act distinguished between three