The Brexit-supporting father of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has acquired French citizenship after making an application last year, a French Ministry of Justice source said on Thursday.
A Conservative who once worked for the European Commission in Brussels, Stanley Johnson opposed Brexit at first, but swung behind the EU departure project following 2016’s narrow referendum vote that was championed by his son.
The elder Johnson’s ties to France are through his French mother, and he speaks the language fluently.
The 81-year-old filed his citizenship application at the French consulate in London in November last year, with a six-month deadline for the justice ministry to object elapsing on Wednesday.
“Based on the facts in his application, and without a refusal by the justice minister, Mr Stanley Johnson acquired French nationality on May 18, 2022,” the ministry said.
“This decision concerns only Mr Stanley Johnson and does not extend to his descendants,” the ministry added.
“I’ll always be European, that’s for sure,” Stanley Johnson told RTL radio in French in a December 2020 interview.
He had come under fire at home for his plans, announced at the same time most Britons were losing the right to travel freely across the EU as a post-Brexit “transition period” ended.
“It’s not a question of becoming French. If I understand correctly I am French. My mother was born in France, her mother was completely French, as was her grandfather,” Stanley Johnson said.
“For me it’s a question of obtaining what I already have and I am very happy about that,” he added.
French law normally prevents children of its citizens from claiming nationality if their family has been abroad for more than 50 years without making use of their rights.
However, their applications can still be considered if they can prove “concrete ties of a cultural, professional, economic or family nature” with France — a clause Stanley invoked in his application.
About 3,100 British people acquired French nationality in 2020, according to the latest figures available from EU statistics agency Eurostat.
That made France the second-most popular choice for acquiring European citizenship, after Germany.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS