Stanley Johnson confirms he has applied for a French passport, and says he will always be a European

Stanley Johnson's plan to apply for a French passport was revealed in his daughter Rachel’s book Rake’s Progress: My Political Midlife Crisis when it was published in March

Credit: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

Stanley Johnson has declared he will “always be a European” on the eve of Brexit, as he confirmed he had applied for a French passport.

The Prime Minister’s father said his familial ties to the Gallic nation led him to seek citizenship on the day the transition period came to an end.

He said: “If I understand it correctly, I am French. My mother was born in France, her mother was totally French as was her grandfather. So for me it is about reclaiming what I already have. And that makes me very happy.”

The environmental campaigner told French radio station RTL on Thursday: “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,” he concluded, in an apparent reference to his passport application.

His mother, known in the family as Granny Butter, claimed to come from an ancient line of French nobility.

Her own mother’s maiden name was de Pfeffel, which was adopted as one of Boris Johnson’s middle names.

The Prime Minister and his siblings spent part of their childhood in Brussels as their father worked for the European Commission.

Mr Johnson senior was also the Tory MEP for Wight and Hampshire East from 1979 to 1984.

A source close to the family suggested Mr Johnson had applied so that his grandchildren could live and work in the EU after Brexit.

His plan to apply for a French passport was revealed in his daughter Rachel Johnson’s book Rake’s Progress: My Political Midlife Crisis when it was published in March.

Ms Johnson wrote that her father was “en route to becoming a French citizen, as his mother had been born in Versailles and his grandmother had been in Paris”.

“This is good news – I might be able to become French too,” she added.

Mr Johnson senior has been mulling over the application for some time. Asked about the suggestion in November 2019, he said it was a “nice thought”.