Amal

PARIS — Actor George Clooney and his wife Amal Clooney were granted French citizenship because “they contribute, through their distinguished actions, to France’s international influence and cultural outreach,” the French government said Wednesday, defending their naturalization that was questioned by a junior French minister.

The naturalizations of the Kentucky-born star of the “Ocean’s” series of heist movies, his wife and human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, and their twins Ella and Alexander were announced last weekend in the Journal Officiel, where French government decrees are published.

Marie-Pierre Vedrenne, a junior minister at the Interior Ministry, expressed misgivings Wednesday that some of the Clooneys’ new French compatriots may think that the star couple was granted special treatment. The actor speaks only what he himself says is “horrible, horrible” French.

“The message being sent is not good,” Vedrenne said in an interview with broadcaster France Info. “There is an issue of fairness that, in my eyes, is absolutely essential.”

The couple purchased an estate in France in 2021 and Clooney has said that it’s their primary residence. Non-French residents of France have multiple possible routes to becoming naturalized. It wasn’t clear whether the 64-year-old actor retained his American citizenship. His 47-year-old wife was born in Lebanon and raised in the U.K and naturalized by France under her maiden name, Amal Alamuddin. The 8-year-old twins were born in London.

The Foreign Ministry said the Clooneys were eligible for citizenship under a French law that allows for the naturalization of foreign nationals who contribute to France’s international influence and economic well-being.

It argued that France’s cinema industry will benefit from the actor’s clout as a global movie star and said that as a lawyer, Amal Clooney regularly works with academic institutions and international organizations in France.

“They maintain strong personal, professional and family ties with our country,” the ministry said.

“Like many French citizens, we are delighted to welcome Georges and Amal Clooney into the national community,” it concluded, giving the actor’s first name a French twist by adding the “s” at the end.

The decision was also defended by Vedrenne’s superior at the Interior Ministry, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, who said he signed the naturalization decree.

“It’s a big chance for our country,” he said.

In recent media interviews when he was promoting “Jay Kelly,” Clooney said that he is trying to teach himself French using a language-learning app. He said that his wife and children speak the language perfectly.

“They speak French in front of me so that they can say terrible things about me to my face and I don’t know,” he joked, speaking to French broadcaster Canal+.

French media have reported that the Clooneys live part-time in their luxury 18th-century villa outside the town of Brignoles in southern France, where they can keep a lower profile and their children are protected from unauthorized photographs by French privacy laws.

In an interview with Esquire in October, Clooney said: “I was worried about raising our kids in L.A., in the culture of Hollywood.”

“I don’t want them to be walking around worried about paparazzi. I don’t want them being compared to somebody else’s famous kids,” he said. Growing up away from the spotlight in France, “they have dinner with grown-ups and have to take their dishes in. They have a much better life.”

George Clooney, wife Amal Clooney and their 8-year-old twins are officially citizens of France, as of the day after Christmas.

The news was reported by multiple French outlets as well as the Guardian, all citing an announcement published in a French government journal.

The Clooneys bought property in France — a farm, he recently told Esquire — in August 2021, when their twins were 4. He said it was a “much better life” there for Ella and Alexander.

“Yeah, we’re very lucky. … A good portion of my life growing up was on a farm, and as a kid I hated the whole idea of it. But now, for them, it’s like — they’re not on their iPads, you know?” he said in the interview, published in the magazine’s October/November issue.

“I was worried about raising our kids in L. A., in the culture of Hollywood. I felt like they were never going to get a fair shake at life. France — they kind of don’t give a s— about fame. I don’t want them to be walking around worried about paparazzi. I don’t want them being compared to somebody else’s famous kids.”

George Clooney married Amal Alamuddin in September 2014 in Venice, Italy.

Domaine Le Canadel in France is, according to Hello, “an enchanting and sprawling 425-acre Provence wine estate” that cost the Clooneys a reported $8.3 million. It has a pool, tennis court, gardens, a lake, an olive grove and a 25-acre vineyard, the outlet said. But, you know, it’s just a farm.

Other celebrity couples have put down roots in the area, of course, with less than charmed results over time. Then again, those folks weren’t French citizens, for the most part.

Clooney’s remarks about the French attitude toward fame echoed previous comments made by Johnny Depp, who years ago found refuge in France for himself and his children, Jack and Lily-Rose, until he split in 2012 from longtime partner Vanessa Paradis, a French singer, model and actor.

The country “afforded [Depp] the possibility of living a normal life. Really a simple life,” the “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor told SFGate in 2001.

In 2010, Depp told People, “With Vanessa and the kids, we live in a sort of little village in the south and I have the impression of being in paradise … and you know what I do there? Absolutely nothing.”

Depp, who started dating his “The Rum Diary” co-star Amber Heard the year he broke up with Paradis, listed his Provence property for sale for almost $26 million in June 2015, then reportedly put it on the market again in the years that followed for more than twice the price. However, despite containing an entire village in its 37 acres, the property appears not to have sold.

Heard and Depp married in 2015 but divorced two years later amid allegations of abuse. Of course, dueling defamation lawsuits followed. It got ugly.

Meanwhile, Clooney’s buddy Brad Pitt and Pitt’s ex, Angelina Jolie, have been battling in court for years over the 2021 sale of her half of their Provence wine estate, Chateau Miraval, which actually produces wine. The former couple signed a long-term lease on the property in 2008 and later bought a controlling interest in the company that owned it.

Pitt and Jolie married at Chateau Miraval in 2014 after meeting in 2004 on the set of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” when he was still married to Jennifer Aniston. (They went official as a couple the following July after Aniston filed for divorce in March 2005.) Jolie and Pitt had kids and adopted kids together over the decade leading up to the wedding, but Jolie filed for divorce after only two years as husband and wife following a fight on a private plane. That also got ugly.

The story of the Pitt-Jolie court battle over the chateau and its winery is long and complicated, but it began with Pitt alleging that he and his ex had an agreement that if either wanted to sell their half of the place, the other would have to consent. Jolie, who sold her shares to Stoli’s wine division, Tenute del Mondo, said they had no such agreement in place.

Although the winery lawsuit remains active, Pitt and Jolie finally reached a divorce settlement in December 2024.