PM’s father Stanley Johnson ‘secures French citizenship’

The prime minister’s father, Stanley Johnson, has secured French citizenship, according to reports.

French officials reportedly told the AFP news agency that Johnson, 81, whose mother was French, obtained French nationality on Wednesday.

Johnson, father to Boris, Rachel, Leo, Jo, Julia and Maximilian, campaigned for the UK to remain in the EU in 2016, while his son Boris led the leave movement. However, Johnson Sr has since expressed support for Brexit.

He confirmed he was applying for a French passport on the eve of Britain’s Brexit transition period coming to an end on 31 December 2020.

Johnson served as an MEP 40 years ago and was one of the first UK civil servants to work in Brussels after Britain joined the EU – then the European Economic Community – in 1973. He went on to work for the European Commission.

He joins thousands of Britons who have acquired EU citizenship since the Brexit vote. He previously said: “It’s not a question of becoming French. If I understood correctly, I am French. My mother was born in France, her mother was entirely French, and her grandfather too. So for me it’s a matter of claiming what I already have.”

He is also on record as saying: “I will always be European, that’s for sure. You can’t tell the English ‘you’re not European’. Europe is more than the single market, it’s more than the European Union. That said, to have a link like that with the EU is important.”

Foreigners with French relatives can no longer claim French nationality when their family has remained settled abroad for more than 50 years without having exercised the rights linked to nationality, according to French law. This is known as loss of nationality through désuétude, or disuse.

However, an article of the French 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 this basis that Johnson is understood to have made a declaration of French nationality, Le Figaro reports.