Former Dutch lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the target of death threats over her criticism of radical Islam, said she has asked France to grant her citizenship because she cannot be assured of protection back home. "I would be very honored and grateful if I were to become a French citizen, and the question of my protection could be resolved once and for all," Somali-born Hirsi Ali said Sunday on France-2 television.
"I live under protection now, but it's a protection in which I still have to move from place to place, and look for donors to pay for my protection," she said in English, simultaneously translated into French for the program. She said she had chosen France because she received support from French intellectuals and expressions of understanding from French political leaders.
Since last October, "I've found myself in the position in which my own government - the government of the Netherlands - has said it doesn't want to pay for my protection," Hirsi Ali said. "The American government said: 'You are a Dutch citizen,' and that it doesn't pay for the protection of foreigners," she said.
French Human Rights Minister Rama Yade, also on the France-2 news program, said: "We believe in France that Ayaan Hirsi Ali must be protected," but stopped short of offering citizenship. 
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