Relocation of a Translator from Tbilisi to France under a Simplified Procedure

Maria Kvaratskhelia, aged 32, is from Tbilisi, married, with one child aged 8. She approached the company in March 2021. At that time, she was working as a French-language translator. During the consultation, it became clear that Maria had dreamed since childhood of living in France, and also that her husband was a programmer ready to work remotely from anywhere in the world. The decisive factor that prompted the Kvaratskhelia family to change their country of residence was the desire to provide their son with a quality European education.

Initially, Maria considered obtaining a French residence permit through employment, but we proposed a faster route — obtaining EU citizenship under an accelerated program. The Bulgarian program was ideally suited to the client. The reason was that there were Bulgarians in her family line. Documents confirming this fact were preserved in the family archive, but no one was aware of their legal significance.

We carefully studied the documents provided by the client and discovered that Maria’s grandfather did in fact belong to the Bulgarian people. Under Bulgarian legislation, the existence of a Bulgarian ancestor is a substantial ground for obtaining citizenship of that country. Our lawyers then only had to collect and prepare the client’s documents in a dossier for subsequent submission to the Ministry of Justice.

In August 2022, Maria and the child obtained Bulgarian passports, and her husband, on the basis of marriage to a citizen of the country, obtained a residence permit and, somewhat later, completed the accelerated naturalization procedure. The status of being family members of an EU citizen enabled all three of them to relocate to France. They now live in Lyon. Maria works as a translator for an international company, her husband continues programming for Georgian clients, and their son studies at a French school.

Maria is particularly grateful to our specialists for helping her use her historical roots, the importance of which her family had never even suspected. She also noted that without professional legal assistance, they would never have been able to understand the subtleties of European migration legislation and procedural nuances.