Hollywood star George Clooney has become French, along with his wife Amal Alamuddin Clooney and their two children, an official decree showed.

The publication in France’s government gazette confirms an ambition Clooney alluded to earlier this month when he hailed French privacy laws that keep his family shielded from paparazzi.

“I love the French culture, your language, even if I’m still bad at it after 400 days of courses,” the 64-year-old actor told RTL radio at the time – in English. “Here, they don’t take photos of kids. There aren’t any paparazzi hidden at the school gates. That’s number one for us,” he said.

The now-dual US-French citizen has a long attachment to Europe, which even pre-dates his 2014 marriage to Amal, a British-Lebanese human rights lawyer who speaks fluent French. Clooney owns an estate in Italy’s picturesque Lake Como region, purchased in 2002, and he and Amal bought a historic manor in England. Their property in southern France – a former wine estate called the Domaine du Canadel, near the village of Brignoles – was purchased in 2021.