Who would you give French nationality to on an exceptional basis?

Moving on from the Clooney’s, who do you think merits French nationality?

Mine would be Julia Child - her much used books on French cooking have been on my bookshelf for more years than I care to remember.

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Well, Elizabeth David would be an appropriate complement to Julia Child, and if we’re going posthumous, Picasso would be an obvious choice, also Christo and Jeanne-Claude (Bulgarian and Moroccan).

But struggling to think of suitable living examples.

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me.

Plus the foreigners rhat were fast tracked for cirizenship who stayed and helped look after the sick in covid.

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but not me and all the other SFers? :wink:

Great choice of topic, Jane!

Apart obviously from giving immediate citizenship to @AngelaR, her partner and others on SF patiently seeking citizenship, I would nominate:-

David Hockney, former resident of Normandy, who is already honoured by France, but not (yet) a citizen

Anthony Blinken, former US secretary of state, a keen Francophile and fluent French speaker

King Charles, a long term supporter of France, Francophile, fluent French speaker (possibly in an honorary capacity!).

Apologies to @DrMarkH but I would definitely not give posthumous citizenship to Picasso, given his toxic legacy of abusive relationships with (often much younger) women, and who once said:

“There are only two kinds of women—goddesses and doormats.”

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me, if only i could find a high building with a small child hanging off in danger of death to rescue while manu was watching and i could overcome my fear of heights. :folded_hands:

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I had already nominated someone for nationality, however appreciate it’s not up there with @George1 ‘s esteemed list of eminent persons.

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Nice!

I expect an invitation to becoming a citizen for helping the local impôts and tourist office to fix their systems over the last 3-4 years.

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Picasso’s been dead for over fifty years, he was born in C19th Spain and his values were in line with his era and cultural background. One doesn’t need to agree with them, but I don’t think it’s useful to judge a historical figure by present day moral values, many of which are also fluid or transient. I was suggesting an exceptional person who’d made a an exceptional contribution to C20th French and indeed Western culture, not a candidate for canonisation.

Incidentally Picasso’s second wife, Jacqueline and his long term mistress, Marie-Thèrese Walther both committed suicide after his death and his widow shot herself with Picasso’s own gun. I think Françoise Gilot was the only mistress whom he treated really badly by trying to stymie her career, but even she owed much of her subsequent to success to Picasso because despite having dumped him, her painting never really broke free of his influence.

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Dali maybe. If anyone hasn’t been to his museum in Figueres(Girona), Spain it is an amazing experience.

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We rightly think of the Surrealists as having strong ties with France, and of course many of them were French, but Dali only lived in France for a short time during the Spanish Civil War, whereas Picasso lived here for over seventy years and never returned to Spain after the Civil War.

Re Figueres: the stretch of Franco-Spanish coast between there and Collioure was a magnet for many well-known C20th artists, but today is overshadowed by the area around Antibes.

Fair he spoke French better than GClooney thou

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Does G Clooney need to speak? He just smiles and smoulders, speaks volumes of non verbal communication.

If we are to continue discussing George Clooney… perhaps we should note that he has been learning French for some time. He reckons he speaks it badly. So what!

I reckon I speak French badly, yet when I apologise I am told (in french) No, no, your French is very good!

I well understand GClooney doing that interview in English… suitable for transmission across the globe…

Unfortunately there are too many critics and I can imagine the furore as those people dissected and rubbished his spoken French . :thinking:

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I agree.

People…something, something…..glasses houses….something….stones.

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Well a You Tube clip of him speaking French was just a few words, but his accent was good.

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Suspect he’s been doing more than just Duolingo lessons…

Ah. I knew there was a reason larkswood12 is there :slight_smile:

I am indeed looking forward to revisiting the Musee Picasso, and also to visit the Pablo Picasso national museum, La Guerre et la Paix, as well as scooping up the Magnelli municipal museum in Vallauris. I wish I had at least 0.01% of Dr Marks knowledge of Picasso. I think Geurnica is one of his greatest and apt for the current times (all times?).

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What I particularly enjoyed was that Dalí himself established and curated his own museum in Figueres. Gives an intimate look into the man himself. Big old romantic!

I hold a very happy memory of a visit there with my two uncles and husband by train for the day from Barcelona some years ago. When we returned to the little station to catch a train back, they told is the next one was in 2 hours, so we sat outside on a platform bench and watched hundreds of starlings murmuring as the sun set.

Both uncles are now in Paradise (hopefully!) and I’m sure they have found Salvador there to tease.

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