Stanley, the father of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has obtained French citizenship.
The father of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Stanley, 81, obtained French nationality on Wednesday, we learned Thursday from the French Ministry of Justice.
Conservative like his son Boris, unfavorable to Brexit in 2016 before changing his mind the following year, Stanley Johnson, born in England on August 18, 1940 to a French mother, had applied for French nationality from the Consul General of France in London on November 18, 2021.
“Given the elements of the file, and in the absence of a refusal decision from the Minister of Justice, Mr. Stanley Johnson acquired French nationality on May 18, 2022, at the expiry of the deadlines provided for by the Civil Code”, said Thursday the chancellery, contacted by AFP.
“This declaration has effect only with respect to Mr. Stanley Johnson and does not extend to his descendants,” the department said.
“I will always be European, that’s for sure”
The French consul in London will “personally” give Mr. Stanley Johnson his title of nationality.
“I will always be European, that’s for sure”, he explained on RTL radio in December 2020. European deputy between 1979 and 1984, he had justified his request for naturalization to keep “a link” with the European Union as his country cast off the moorings with the EU.
“It’s not a question of becoming French. If I understood correctly, I’m French. My mother was born in France, her mother was entirely French and her grandfather too. So for me, it’s a question of claiming what I already have”, he had underlined.
French people by descent can no longer claim this nationality when their family (the ascendants) has remained settled abroad for more than 50 years without having exercised the rights linked to nationality, according to French law. It is a loss of nationality by “disuse”.
But another article of the civil code allows these people to regain French nationality by simple declaration, subject to justifying “manifest cultural, professional, economic or family ties” with France or having fought for it. It was on the basis of this article that Stanley Johnson signed a declaration of French nationality.